#i have been awake since 5 am BUT ive also slept for like. 4 hours during the day maybe more | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ohgodanothersideblog · 5 years

Text

5 Times Tony Stark Fell Asleep on Someone, and the 2 Times Someone Fell Asleep on Him

@bookeatingworm posted this in a discord we’re a apart of, and I wanted to write it. I hope you guys like it ❤️ any weird format issues I’m sorry, had to post on mobile 😭

Tony Stark didn’t fall asleep next to people. That didn’t change when a certain Sorcerer Supreme became his boyfriend. In fact it almost made the whole thing worse.

“Tony you need to rest.” Stephen sighed, bandaging up the engineers wounds. He had multiple lacerations on his chest and back and probably a few broken ribs. They both sat in the common room, the debrief had already happened, now it was time to patch everyone up.

“I’ll be fine doc, I swear.” Tony said, gently batting at the sorcerers hands. He didn’t need to rest, he needed to make his suit better. Tony attempted to get up but strong arms wrapped around him, pulling him back down onto the couch. He winced at the sudden pressure on his ribs before settling against the taller man behind him.

“How about this; we watch a movie and rest for a bit, if you’re still feeling up to attempting to not listen to me, we can go down to the lab, together?” Stephen offered, kissing the top the smaller mans head. He was going to convince Tony to rest whether the engineer wanted to or not. Tony just sighed and nodded. “Good.” With that, FRIDAY put on a movie without being told. The AI knew what the Doctor was doing and was planning on assisting him as best as she could. Tony was running on 12 hours sleep combined this week. He had a fear of sleeping because of his nightmares. They had been really bad the past few months. He also didn’t want to almost kill Stephen like he had done to Pepper a few years back.

“I can hear you thinking.” Stephen rolled his eyes, carding his shaky fingers through the engineers hair. Tony sighed, it was becoming harder to stay awake between the warm body behind him and the feeling of someone gently massaging his scalp. Soon enough, soft snores could be heard and the sorcerer smiled down at the sleeping figure against him.

It was another nightmare. The wormhole again. Dying again. Only this time he saw Peter and Stephen die too. Stephen tried to wake up Tony. He called in the suit again. Stephen wasn’t hurt, but Tony was shaking.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t--” Tony was cut off by Stephen pulling him into a hug. He sighed, resting his head against the bare clavicle, feeling Stephen run his scarred hands up and down his back.

“I’m not going anywhere, you’re safe.” The sorcerer whispered into Tony’s hair. Stephen pulled Tony back down to the bed and continued to draw small circles along the engineers back.

“Just go back to sleep, it’s okay.” Stephen whispers, Tony sighs and gets comfortable, laying on top of Stephen basically. If it were anyone else, he’d leave. He would go to the lab and stay up until he passed out.

___

Tony was on day four in the lab. He was running on coffee and sheer willpower. He needed to update one of his suits. He was reconfiguring one of the gauntlets that malfunctioned during a fight. Stephen had to patch him up after that fight. He was so absorbed in what he was doing, that he didn’t hear the door to the lab open.

“Tony...c’mon. You’ve been down here for four days.” Stephen sighed at the smaller man who was hunched over one of his work benches. He looked exhausted.

“‘m fine, jus’ need more coffee…” The engineer got up and staggered to the coffee pot. Stephen intercepted him and forced Tony to look at him. His eyes were bloodshot, the bags that were under his eyes were dark, he looked like a wreck.

“You’re going to bed.” Stephen sighed. Tony looked like he was about to argue “Try me, Beyonce.” He glared at the engineer, gently pushing him over towards an open portal.

“I don’t need sleep.” Tony huffed, trying to leave their room, quickly the cloak that was hovering in the corner swaddled the man and laid him on the bed, not retracting from said swaddle. “Asshole.” The cloak smacked him upside the head.

“Your tech can wait, sleep is important.” The doctor was coming out, Tony knew he wouldn’t win this argument.

“I’ll stay...can you please have your cloak let me go?” He asked. Almost instantly the cloak released him and went and settled in the corner. Stephen rolled his eyes and propped himself against some pillows. He began to read silently. Tony laid his head on the sorcerers stomach and soft snores filled the room.

______

“Boss, Peter is entering your bedroom.” FRIDAY’s voice filled the master bedroom. Tony was propped up against some pillows, doing work on his STARK pad. Peter pushed open the door and looked at the engineer sheepishly. He was trembling and looked a little pale.

“Nightmare?” Tony asked, looking at the teen. When Peter nodded, he patted the bed. Peter wasted no time climbing up and leaning into his dad. Normally he went to Stephen for nightmares. But the sorcerer was away on a mission of sorts. He never really had to talk about it with the sorcerer, he always knew what it was about. So they’d snuggle and watch a movie. When he went to Tony about his nightmares, he’d want to know to an extent what the nightmare was about.

“It was the water again.” Peter mumbled. Tony sighed and put down his work and put an arm around the kid, pulling him in a little closer. “Only you didn’t save me.” His voice started to quiver. If Tony could, he’d have squeezed the kid even harder.

“I did save you though. You’re safe. You’re alive.” Tony reassured him softly. Peter wrapped himself around the man and made himself as comfortable as possible. “Don’t use your spider grip on me and we should be good.” Peter just nodded. Tony turned on a movie and relaxed. Normally he would have tried to get the teen to go back to his room, but with Stephen gone for a bit, he was lonely. He began to match his breathing with Peters. Slow and steady. It was causing Tony’s eyes to feel heavy.

Peter looked up at his dad, not realizing he had fallen asleep. His dad never really slept around anyone, aside from Stephen. He was too scared of his own nightmares and of hurting those he loved. At least that’s what Aunt Pepper had told him when he asked. Stephen told him it took months for Tony to fall asleep around him, and it was only because he had gotten hurt during a battle. “Night dad.”

____

It was movie night in the compound. Most of the team was already sprawled out in their select spots. Tony strolled in last second and plopped himself next to Stephen. He leaned into the sorcerer this time. Stephen wrapped an arm around him and kissed the top of his head. Peter, once again, draped himself over both his parents only this time he also grabbed a blanket. Tonight's movie was Clint’s pick: Lord of the Rings.

“Of course Legolas would pick Lord of the Rings.” Tony rolled his eyes, only to be hit in the head with a piece of popcorn. “You’re cleaning up the mess if you keep it up.”

“Children, please.”

“I thought you were on my side!” Tony’s eyes widened with feigned shock. Stephen just smacks him lightly earning a grunt from the engineer.

Once the movie started, Tony settled back against the sorcerer and pulled Peter closer. A small smile played on his lips as he realized this was his family. With that, the engineer willingly fell asleep in a room full of earth's mightiest heroes.

“Is he actually asleep?” Rhodey’s eyes were wide. He hadn’t seen Stark fall asleep in front of anyone since their MIT days, and that was even a rarity back then. The others all stared at the engineer in shock. It was a few moments of silence until someone cleared their throat.

“Wake him, and I’ll kill you.” Stephen glared over at the others. He was terrifying when he needed to be and this was one of those moments. It had taken almost a full year to convince Tony to sleep in the same bed. Now that he was comfortable falling asleep here, in front of all of them, he wasn’t going to have it ruined. The others silently nodded and returned their attention to the movie.

__________

Stephen stumbled through the portal and into the lab. He had a few new cuts and bruises, but overall he was exhausted. He used too much magic and now he needed to sleep. He hated how much his magic could drain him at times. It made it almost impossible for him to do anything. It didn’t help that he had started to try to heal himself. Wong glared at him for that one.

“Stephen!” Tony rushed to his husbands side. He helps the taller man up and they slowly make their way to one of the couches in the lab.

“‘m fine, used all my magic. Sleep.” Stephen mumbled, collapsing on the couch, pulling Tony down with him. Before Tony could move, a soft snore escaped from the sorcerer. Tony chuckles, and settles in against Stephen before eventually falling asleep.

____

Peter was sick. Really sick. Stephen had barely slept the past week because of Peter’s temperature spiking. He ended up in med bay with Peter around 4 AM to put the teen on IV’s with Bruce. Bruce had also drawn some of Peter’s blood to see if he could figure out what was going on. The teen, who normally put up a fight about med bay, didn’t even care that he was there for once. Stephen was just glad that he was finally getting some fluids that he wouldn’t throw back up. Tony had walked in with a cup of coffee and his STARK pad. He’d be able to monitor Peter, while getting work done.Now it was convincing Stephen to get some much needed sleep.

“Steph, go to bed. I’ll stay here with him. I promise.” Tony reassured the worried sorcerer. Ste “I’ll have FRIDAY call you if anything changes.” He added, hoping to convince his husband to go lay down.

“Okay, make sure he stays here. Hopefully it’s a bad flu. Call when Bruce has the results.” Stephen’s sentences were short. Tony nodded, kissing him and then sitting in the chair. He glanced at Peter; he had lost weight, he was white as a ghost, he looked awful. Tony sighed and had FRIDAY put on a Disney movie to help the kid sleep.

“Dad?” Peter asked quietly, causing the engineer to look up. He had some color back and his temperature was maintaining. The teen moved over a little bit. Tony knew what the kid wanted without him even asking, he climbed into the bed and Peter wrapped himself around his dad.

A few hours had passed and Peter was looking more and more like himself. Stephen had woken up, feeling well rested and ready to take care of Peter.

#doctor strange #ironstrange #stephen strange #supremefamily #tony stark #tony stark x stephen strange #peter parker #spider man

160 notes · View notes

tori-cilia · 5 years

Text

Hey there

Everything I will say is 100% true. I’ve lived it all unfortunately.

So to start us off I guess I should tell you a bit about myself. My names Tori and I just turned 17 this year, I ended up switching to online school in the 10th grade and im now in 11th grade however im a few years back due to certain events that I will explain later. I have 8 siblings while my older 3 siblings were the ones that raised me. My parents were divorced before I was born so I was just thrown into the shit show I call my life, so its all ive really known. I simply want people who have experienced the same things I have to know that they are not alone and that someone understands them.

So lets start with my parents. My mom and dad met in California, now I have no idea why they were there but I do know its because they were both in the service at the time. My mom served in the navy and my dad was in the marines. my dad was in war at some point in time and my mother was lucky enough to not have to endure that. while they were in California they had my eldest sister who was born there, they both were honorably discharged and they moved to Michigan where my dad had grown up (my mom was born and raised in New York). about 2 or 3 years later my oldest brother was born and following him came my only other older sister. these three were the only ones out of the first 4 to be alive when our parents were together. I was told stories about how bad it was, my parents would constantly fight and beat on eachother. While my dad was out at bars and strip clubs after work my mother would be home drugged out and drunk and would be passed out on the couch. my siblings took care of eachother and luckily our grandparents(my dads parents) lived across the street, where they still live. Ive been told my mother would lock my siblings in their rooms while she would go and do drugs and my dad would be out cheating on my mom or getting drunk. My brother would run down the street in nothing but a dirty diaper until my grandparents would get him or the neighbors would bring him to my mom. in the middle of 2001 my mom told my dad she was pregnant in an attempt to trap him in their marriage, but clearly it didn't work. he was done with her at that point and had found someone else who would be my evil step mother for the next 9 years of my life. in april of 2002 I was born. my mom had kept me away from my dad and his side of my family for one year and the judges couldn't do anything about it since she was breast feeding me. my oldest sister told me I would always cry until my mom fed me.( she thinks its because I was going through withdrawls since my mom did drugs with me while she was pregnant). when I was 2 my mom had remarried to the biggest asshole prick I will ever meet in my entire life while my dad was married to the biggest slut and bitch that will ever exsist. so for the next few years of my life it mostly was made up of custody battles between my mom and dad with my step parents only making mine and my siblings lives worse. my mom had given birth to 4 more children who I love with all of my heart. I had moved a lot since I was born. I went from st,clair shores to Wyandotte then to taylor and that was just with my dad. I had gone to the same school until 5th grade, my step mother had forced my dad to take me out of the only place I knew that made me happy and that was eureka heights elementary school. I loved that school, its where my love for learning began. I had friends and the teachers knew me because of my siblings and the counselors already knew my home situation. I was outgoing and happy there. they moved me to blair moody in the 5th grade and I will never understand why my dad let that happen. I hated it there, I missed my teachers and I missed my friends. towards the middle of the school year my mom had moved us to grosse ile which I hated even more. its a very lonely island, the kids always thought they were better than me and made me feel horrible about myself. I started and finished middle school in grosse ile. When I was around 9 my step mom had cheated on my dad and they got divorced. she had multiple affairs throughout their marriage and eventually got pregnant one time. she told my dad it was his then aborted it and told him she had a miscarriage. later she got pregnant and this time it really was my dads but we found out later that it was a pitty baby. anyways she had given birth to my beautiful baby sister, the only good thing that came out of their marriage. after they got divorced my dad slipped into a deep depression and disappeared out of my life. for years my mom had told me it was because he didn't love me and didn't want me. I felt I would never be good enough for anyone because if my own dad didn't want me why would anyone else. My oldest sister had left my moms at 14 by telling the cops she would kill herself if she was forced to go back. my brother had just run away and never came back to my moms when he was 16. my other sister left my moms at 16 because my stepdad said we weren't allowed to see our brother anymore and i ended up having to raise my 4 younger siblings. but they all left for the same reason... they were tired of my moms bullshit, they were tired of seeing her get beat and every time we put my stepdad in jail for it she would bail him out. I watched my mom get beat up every single night for 15 years. during the 7th grade I began failing my classes and I wouldn't go to school everyday, I would bargain with my mom to let me stay home. I was diagnosed with extreme to severe depression when I was 12...that was also the year I watched my mom get taken out on a gurney while she was shaking and crying, begging for my step dad to not hurt her. I couldn't get out of bed, I wouldn't eat, I slept too much or too little. I didn't talk to anyone. I stayed in this little world in my head where things were perfect. in the 8th grade I moved to trenton with my mom. I started high school in Trenton and I made friends on orientation day for the first time in years they even convinced me to go to the homecoming game where I met my first boyfriend. that night we hit it off, we talked for hours and he stayed by my side all night and he even walked me home. he said I was beautiful and that he liked my natural hair which is curly and out of control. when I got home we started texting. we talked everyday and he eventually asked me out and I of course said yes. by then my dad had been out of my life for 5 years and my mom would never let me forget it. she told me that he wanted her to abort me and the moment she old me that everything inside me died. I hated myself. I told her I wish she did abort me. I was so depressed and full of anxiety. I was with my boyfriend for 4 months and it ended in march because of me. I had broke up with him because I met someone else. it was my little sisters birthday party and my moms friends had come with their children. I seen 2 walk in and I didn't pay no mind to them but then one boy came in..he clearly didn't want to be there. I actually had to do a double take. he followed me like a puppy that night and I would take quick glances at him. when they were about to leave he ran into my house and asked me for my snapchat and I gave it to him. we talked all night..and that was also the night I broke up with my boyfriend and it is now the one thing I will always regret. this new guys name was cj, he was dreamy and knew just the right things to say. I seen him again on his birthday that was the day we started dating. he was my first love. everything was great at first. my mom and step dad would go out with his parents and party so I would be at his house with him and my siblings and I would watch the kids and spend time with him. he showed me the love I didn't get from my dad or my mom. by this time I had stopped going to school. I was too tired from taking care of my siblings all night and then getting woken up at 3 or 4 am bc the parents were arguing and the kids were crying hysterically. I would get everything calmed down and stay awake for the rest of the night because I was too scared to fall back asleep. at the end of the school year we moved to garden city. we had been evicted from yet another house, I learned to not get too attached to places or people and for me...I didn't have a home. me and cj had been together for 2 months around this time. he helped me move into the new house and he came over every day since he lived 5 minutes away from me. I lost my virginity to him. in july I had finally left my moms when I was 15. something in me had snapped that night. my cousin didn't know who I was because my mom never let me see my dads side of the family. I called my sister because I was going to try to kill myself again. I had a handful of pills and the note on my dresser. my sister drove from grosse ile to garden city and saved my life that night. I packed my things and I left as fast as I could. I told my younger siblings that I loved them and that it wasn't their fault I was leaving..they were the only reason I stayed as long as I did..seeing them cry as I left that night made my heart break into a million pieces, they were my babies, everything I had done was for them. it was a fight every night I was gone. my mom had called the cops and reported me as a runaway. she said I was an ungrateful child. cj was kinda by my side. he didn't understand my situation. he didn't understand the hurt I was going through. I moved in with my brother a few weeks after I moved out. sometime in july cj had broken up with me. he said my family had caused too much drama and he couldn't do it anymore. the very next morning my mom came with the cops to come and get me. my entire world was falling apart around me. I was too emotionally and mentally drained to even fight it. my brother had been out of town on business so it was just me and his girlfriend. the cops told me I was just a kid who didn't like the rules and I had no reason to leave my moms. I was trying to tell them what happened at my moms but my mom kept denying it. so I gave up and just left with her. I got hack to her house and my room was used as a storage unit for them and I had to clean it by myself. I didn't want to do anything. I wanted to stay in bad and sleep and wait for cj to come back. I thought maybe it was just a dream and I would wake up and id be at my brothers but it never happened. my mom and her best friend at the time would tell me I was stupid for leaving. they made me feel bad about myself everyday. I told my mom I had lost my virginity to cj and she called me cheap for giving it up to him. I got enrolled into garden city highschool. I went the first day and never showed up again. I lied to my mom and told her I was walking to school but I would leave for an hour then walk back and climb into bed and hide under the covers...she slept the whole time so she had no idea anyways. her friend had seen what it was like for me there and ended up getting me out of there. my mom raised hell when I left again. she hated me. I hated her....the night I left was the first time I had seen cj since we had broken up 4 months ago. and with my luck Nicole (my moms friend who had gotten me out of my moms) was dating cjs dad. I celebrated my 16th birthday with my dads side of the family. my siblings, my grandparents and my dad. after 7 years of not seeing him I seen him again only a month before my 16th birthday, one night my dad TEXTED me and told me him and my now step mother we’re engaged. everyone knew except me and I had to find out over text. I froze..i couldn't say anything and I just burst into tears. I was angry and I was hurt. my dad had put his girlfriends before me for years and now he was engaged. I called him and went off. I told him how him leaving effected me. how I couldn't trust anyone because of him...that night I made my dad cry..and I couldn't stop because it was his turn to feel what I felt. while I lived with Nicole I had found out my sister was pregnant. it was one of the happiest days of my life. I will always remember how I felt that day... I had also dated cj a few more times and each time he would break up with me after a few weeks. he would get me high and have sex with me and then he would leave me. I felt I was only good enough for a quick fuck. me, Nicole and her two kids moved in with her boyfriend and my ex. which only made things worse for me. we dated one final time. mine and nicoles relationship slowly deteriorated and we got into an argument and she kicked me out. I went to my grandparents cottage for a week and never heard from Nicole again. cj broke up with me again for the final time. he had cheated on me for the final time. he had broken my heart for the final time. I moved in with my dad and he went and stayed at his wifes moms house with her and her daughter while I lived alone with my sisters cats. I drank and got high every night to try to avoid the things in my mind. October 1st my niece was born. and the same day I got evicted from the place I was staying at since my dad wasn't paying the bills. so I moved in with my grandparents. I continued to smoke and eventually got caught and got kicked out. I felt terrible. I moved in with my dad and only 2 months later we got kicked out because him and his wife were acting like idiots. I got pissed off at my dad because he had let me down again. I called me sister (the same one who picked me up from my moms) and I lived with her foe a couple months. it was great, I got to see my niece everyday. I was in a really good place mentally and emotionally. I was on my meds and I was doing my online school which I was put into during the 10th grade. I celebrated my 17th birthday with my sister and brother. she got me cake and some painting stuff. now I live with my dad and here we are. I am still very depressed. im not currently on my medications due to money problems and I cant afford it. me and my dad are working on our relationship, me and my step mom are close kinda, I love my niece who is now 7 months, me and my mom are on good terms and she even threw me a birthday party. ive come a long way. and even if no one else is proud of me...I am. Don't get me wrong I still have things I need to work on but im getting there. and my siblings and grandparents have been here for me through every step. I love them and couldn't be more thankful. last year around this time if you asked me where I think I would be right now...I would say dead..but 7 months ago my beautiful niece gave me one more reason to keep fighting all the bullshit.

there is no way for me to be able to fully describe how my life has been..this is just the quick version.

1 note · View note

truthfulrebellion-blog · 6 years

Text

Hysterectomy

Let’s call it what it is. No pussy footing around it. A necessary evil on the way to the end game: phalloplasty. I had been waiting almost six months to hear back about my approval for phalloplasty. I currently have health insurance through Kaiser Permanente, and they had a laundry list of things for me to do in order to present my file to the medical board. I had to transfer my files over from the organization I was seeking healthcare through, as it was cheaper than paying out of pocket for an endocrinologist, to Kaiser. I also had to obtain letters from two medical professionals confirming my need for bottom surgery. The whole process took nearly a year and several trips to medical facilities nearly thirty miles away from my home. My case manager finally called and said in order for the final review to occur, I had to get a hysterectomy.

At the time, I thought that was done by the surgeon performing the phalloplasty at the time of the phalloplasty. With Kaiser, that is not the case. They want anything and everything they have the capability of doing done within their facility. Likely to keep costs down. I didn’t mind. My hysterectomy was scheduled for December 15th, 2018. I had to get blood tests done and watch several videos that didn’t pertain to my situation regarding the procedure. The videos are, obviously, geared towards women. I did what I needed to do and prepared myself for the surgery date. I got a call to move my surgery up about 10 days, even better. Then not 24 hours before the surgery, I received a call stating that it was being delayed for a week. My new date was the 11th. This was terribly inconvenient as my care giver for after my surgery had already taken off work for the original surgery date.

I walked into the facility to check in about an hour early. I had yet another interesting surprise. The surgery was going to cost me money. $475, or close to it. Luckily, I had the money. I was very upset that I wasn’t told about this ahead of time, however. I am paying for the most expensive coverage this company offers so I had as little to pay out of pocket as possible. In the grand scheme of things, $475 is better than $10k. It still would have been nice to know before I showed up. If you have Kaiser, please make sure you know exactly what the costs are before you walk in the door.

I got checked in. I had to remove all of my clothing, put on a hospital gown & surgery cap, and take one final per break. I also forgot to mention I had to stop eating at midnight the day of and wipe my body down with these pre-surgery wipes. I was hungry and my skin smelled weird. They hooked up my IV, fed me my “lunch”, and several doctors came in to ask me questions and verify information. My surgery was supposed to occur at 3pm, but was delayed until closer to 5/530. My surgeon came in to make sure I knew what was about to take place. He also talked to me about a surgeon for bottom surgery in Arizona or New Mexico he was going to refer me to. He had given me the name in our prior consultation. When I looked that surgeon up, I was horrified. The man was fired from the California region Kaiser Permanente for botching transwomens vaginoplasties. The guy didn’t even specialize in phalloplasty. I expressed these concerns to him and told him it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to partner with him for any trans surgeries. Hopefully he heeds my advice. He confirmed that after the surgery, he would stick to the decision to refer me to Dr. Jens Berli of Portland, OR.

I knew nothing of Dr. Berli. There are no results to been seen online, barely anyone who has undergone his procedure even talks about their results, and I couldn’t find any other information besides his starting point in Maryland. I found his Facebook page and did some pretty intense research on him. He seems to genuinely care about his patients and has a passion for what he does. His only negative review is from someone who never had surgery with him because of a communication issue with his staff. Everyone else gave him five stars. So, I figured why the hell not. Hopefully my progress will help others who may be going to Dr. Berli for their phalloplasty be more comfortable with moving forward with him or the surgery itself. I am flying as blind in this moment as some of those who might read this in the future might feel. Trust me. I feel your pain.

I finally went in for my surgery. This time I wasn’t put under until I was on the surgery table. For my top surgery, I was out before I turned the corner on the way to the operating room. The next thing I remember is waking up several hours later and in pain. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I was very disoriented. I’m not surprised considering I was on anesthesia. Apparently I wasn’t breathing enough either since my O2 alarm kept going off. I had to stay for an extra hour until I could get my breathing going regularly. Which is hard because I believe I have sleep apnea, and when I sleep I breathe much slower than I do when I’m awake. So I would fall back asleep, stop breathing, and be woken up by the nurses to get me to breathe. I didn’t feel any different than I usually do. I was actually quite comfy. But I’m sure it was uncomfortable for others around me to see me breathe 1-2 times a minute while asleep.

I was in so much pain. The pain meds hadn’t kicked in yet. I had had a total hysterectomy, oophorectomy, and partial vaginectomy. Let me tell you. When your genitals are covered in stitches, sitting fucking hurts. I couldn’t get comfortable. Then I had to go to the bathroom. Lord, that was an adventure in of itself. Once I was done, I had to have the nurse help me pull my maternity disposable underwear and extra absorbent pad on. And to help me get dressed. The was a humbling experience. But those disposable underwear are comfortable AF. I wish I had had more of them. I was only sent home with the 1 extra pair. After I got dressed, they sent my care giver to get the car. They sat me in a wheel chair and wheeled me to the pick up area. Wheel chairs are super uncomfortable. I begged the nurse to let me sit on the plushy waiting area seat, but she told me no. I couldn’t wait to get out of that chair. It hurt so bad.

I’ll spare additional details about the trip home. I was basically in pain in the seat, it took over an hour to get home, and I got right in the couch seat I’d be in for the next week and fell asleep. I had to wake up every 1-2 hours to pee and every 4 hours to take my pain meds. Compared to my chest surgery, the pain of the hysterectomy actually wasn’t too bad. I barely needed any medicine. The worst pain came when I peed. It burned like the surface of the sun, and I could barely get the urine out. This lasted for about 2-3 days. I was bleeding pretty regularly for 1-2 weeks and spotting until the 6th week. I had horrible colored discharge the entire recovery. I actually had to go get adult diapers when my last pair of those comfy underwear got worn out. I couldn’t find any of those huge puffy pads or anything without adhesive.

I think the worst part was not being able to poop. I could feel the poop in my back. I really could. But I could not get my bowels to work. Apparently, this is normal. I ended up pooping on day 5. Best advice? Take stool softeners religiously. I would go so far as to say take a laxative on day 3 or 4 because that poop is going to be quite solid. TMI alert, my first poop after surgery tore a little bit of the inside. Like a hemorrhoid. I’m getting into these details because I wish I had had them. It’s not rainbows and butterflies. It’s bleeding and inability to poop. I also could barely sleep as I had to sleep on my back, and I can’t sleep on my back. I get so unfortable. By day 3 I was sleeping on my side on the other couch. I’m also a bigger guy, so I had to hold my stomach when I got up since there was a lot of pain from my belly hanging. I’m not 300+ pounds or anything, but I do have a beer belly. If you are the same, just be prepared for tummy pain when getting up.

I slept on the couch for 3 weeks. It was so much more comfortable than my bed. And it was easy access to everything. I am almost 8 weeks post op and still get tummy pain. But for the most part, pain and blood free. I do still have discharge coming out. I’ll probably continue to wear the diapers until I run out just in case. I had already ruined a pair of pants when I thought the discharge was done. But after about 7-10 days, I was walking around and driving and doing what I needed to do. It was uncomfortable to sit and bend over, so my roommate had to help with a lot of things. My final observation is to leave the scabs alone. I accidentally picked at my belly scab and one of the dissolvable stitches came loose from my incision. I had that stitch hanging out for at least 2 weeks until it finally dissolved at the base and popped off. My scars look great and my hair has finally grown back on my stomach.

I’m doing all of this well after my surgery, so I am sure I have missed a thing or two. If you have any questions, please give me a comment or a message. I will answer anything.

2 notes · View notes

suhsuhsuckit · 6 years

Text

Ten- scared to lose you

For the past 2 years, you had a drastic vision change and you have been throwing up, and you already know you’re underweight. You’ve been telling people you throw up easily but no one believes you. They think you’re just trying to get attention since it happens so often. One day, you were staying the night with your new boyfriend, Ten. You told him you were not feeling too well and right after that you started to puke. Your head was throbbing, feeling like it was about to burst. Ten helped you lay down and he got you water and Advil.

“Thank you Ten.” You smile, sitting up for a little, quickly taking it. “I’m sorry I got sick.. I was doing good for a while.” He smiles softly as he lays a hand on your lap.

“It’s okay, maybe we will know what’s going on one day.” You nod and close your eyes.

“Babe, can you turn the light off?..” it’s making my headache hurt more..” he nods and turns off the light for you then lays down next to you, keeping an eye on you. You kept your eyes closed, your headache getting worse and worse with every second that ticked by. It wasn’t long after you started to drift to sleep. You suddenly woke up, puking in the trashcan ten places near the bed. He was worried for you and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

Before you knew it, it was 1 am, and you sat with your head pressed against the bed post because that helped the pain sometimes. With the pain dying down a little, you finally went to bed. You didn’t get much sleep in, neither did Ten. You woke up a couple hours later, crying in pain, holding your head tightly.

“It hurts! It hurts so bad!” It felt like dozens and dozens of knifes where going through your head. Ten quickly woke up and called your parents. He was letting them know that he was taking you to the hospital. He couldn’t bare to see you in pain. He quickly helped you into the car, bringing a pillow for you to lay your head against in the car. He drove as fast as he could to the nearby emergency room.

Once he got there, he helped you in. You walked in perfectly fine and he told the lady at the desk what was wrong. The nurse took you to get your height and weight. They soon take you to a room, making you change into a hospital gown. Ten was going to leave the room but you asked him to help you. Soon after you changed, the nurse took you back to your CT scan. They hooked many wires up to you before the scan started.

*couple hours later*

You have been in your room for a while while the nurses came in and started to give you an IV. You just sit there as calm as you could be, you knew something was wrong, but you couldn’t freak out. While the IV was being placed in your hand, the Doctor took Ten out of the room.

“Where is her parents?” Ten had the most scared look on his face.

“Out of town.. I’m her boyfriend.” The Doctor nods and sighs.

“We already called the other hospital. The ambulance is on their way. “

“Wait.. what?..” Ten started to get teary eyed as the Doctor took him to go see the CT scans. He pointed at this big blob in the lower half of the brain.

“This is a brain tumor. And where it is, it’s blocking her Spinal drainage tube, so all of these other white spots is fluid.” He tried to explain it as simple as he can for Ten. But all can think of is how he may lose you. The though of you next to him scared him to death. “Look, we don’t want you to cry, we don’t want her to worry right now.” He took ten back to your room. The nurses from the other hospital came in, and they quickly transfer you to a different hospital bed and took you to the ambulance. Ten followed, and drove in the front seat.

It felt like with in seconds, you were already at the other hospital, and right when they took you out, you blacked out.

Ten followed while holding your hand. He didn’t want to let go of you, he was terrified if he did, he’d lose you. He followed them up to a room and he sat in the chair next to the hospital bed. You had your eyes closed shut and Held his hand tightly.

“I think i am going to sleep. My head hurts and I can’t keep my eyes open” you started to mumble. Ten held your hand tight and nodded. He watched you fall asleep and he started to cry. He was scared to lose you.

“ I really hope you’ll come out okay from this.. I really don’t want to lose you.. “ He holds your hands against your face, and he watches you sleep. He couldn’t fall asleep at all. He could only think about how he needs to be the one to take care of you until your parents get back. He watches your stomach rise and fall as you sleep as the tears roll down his face. “I really love you Y/N.. I really do.. no matter where we are I always feel like I’m at home..”. Once he finished speaking, his eyes fluttered shut. He falls asleep next to your bed with your hand up against his lips.

The next night, around 4 am you were taken to have emergency surgery. You woke up screaming in pain, saying you head is going to explode. While the surgery was happening, Ten was taken to your new room. He sat in the chair by the window, watching sirens go on then quickly disappearing. With in the next few hours, they brought you into the room. Ten glanced up and all he saw was a tube coming out of your head. He started to bawl his eyes out. He couldn’t believe this was happening to you, he kept sitting there, wishing it was all a Dream.

The rest of the day went by quick because you were mostly sleeping and Ten was keeping your parents updated.

By the next day you were having another surgery, this time to remove the tumor. You remember them taking you back into this big room and asking “Banana or cherry” and you picked banana. The next thing you know, you woke up with all the nurses staring at you then you were out again.

You were taken back to the room, and Ten was there with flowers and balloons. There was also cards from your friends and other family who came by. You slept off and on all day again and Ten never left your side. He didn’t eat much because he wanted to be by your side the whole time.

Through the next 9 days, Ten stayed by your side and helped you with your therapy. He even stayed after your parents finally showed up. He helped you walk to the bathroom.

One day, you where sleeping, so your parents and Ten talked. “ they said the tumor was 5 cm. It was benign tumor on her cerebellum.” Your mom shrugged while hugging your dad. “The doctors were not sure if she could even walk again.” Your parents felt bad because they were not there until after your surgery and Ten could tell they were upset about that.

“She did well. She is already starting to walk again, she hasn’t cried once, she’s just a little mean because of the steroids.” He rubs your mom’s arm. “She’s doing amazing. I thought I would be the one claiming her down but yet when she’s awake, she’s the one that calms me down.” You finally started to wake up right when the nurse walks in with the doctor.

They quickly pulled the tube out of your head . Ten was watching and he looked away not being able to watch. With in seconds he heard you screaming. He quickly ran in the room and hugged you.

“What happen?” He said with worry.

“It hurts when they put staples in you” you started to cry and hugged him tightly. It hurt..” He kisses your nose and wipes your tears.

“It’s okay love. I’m right here” He smiles lightly and it felt like all your pain, emotionally and physically, had disappear.

—

A few days later, you where able to get out of the hospital and Ten took you to therapy when your parents couldn’t. He always cheered you on and helped you at home.

“Babe, you’re doing so good. You’re getting stronger already. “ ten said as you made it up the stairs with out Help finally.

—

The way she smiled after she made it up the stairs made my heart skip many beats. Watching her make progress from something so horrible is something that makes me fall in love with her more. She’s living proof of miracles. I was terrified I would lose her and yet she was always the one to calm me down and tell me everything is okay. She believed in her self, she was strong.

“Ten are you going to come up here and live on your living room with me” she giggles and walks to the couch. I couldn’t help but smile big. I quickly went up the stairs and sat next to her. I was careful about cuddling her since she still had staples. “I love you so much Ten. I’m so glad you didn’t leave me.” She looked at me as if I was a prize.

“Why would I Leave the love of my life” i kisses her cheek. She giggled and cuddled me more. I honestly can’t wait to go through this journey with her and watch her grow as our relationship grows. I just want to make her as happy as she makes me.

A/N: this might be crap but I really hope you do find a way to like it. Please feel free to correct me on any spelling and grammar mistakes, even though I am 18, I’m still learning.

8 notes · View notes

zoemurph · 7 years

Text

to have a friend, chapter six: $136

on ao3 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

i was gonna hold back on posting this but im impatient. if you thought this was going to be subtle in any way you should know ive never been subtle a day in my life. please read the end notes chill thank you

warnings: depression, suicidal thoughts, small mention of blood (in the past)

enjoy!!

Connor has made a lot of mistakes in his life. Sure, everyone does, but most people aren’t as giant fuck ups as Connor is.

Right now, at the very top of his ‘what the fuck were you thinking’ list, is letting Evan Hansen fall asleep on him.

He wouldn’t have pushed Evan off of him or anything like that, he’s not a monster, but god. He regrets letting Evan stay like that for almost three hours. Curled up against him and breathing gently and looking all calm and at peace while he slept. His hair had been ridiculously soft and he smelt like pine and—

Connor covers his face with his hands.

Evan fell asleep on his shoulder almost two weeks ago and it’s literally occupied so many of Connor’s thoughts that he’s going to scream.

The universe is really fucking cruel. Of course he’d develop a painful crush on the guy that he’s paying to pretend to be his friend. Hilarious.

He’s been trying to keep it subtle. Under wraps. Don’t smile too much at Evan. Don’t laugh too much. Don’t touch him. At all. No physical contact at all whatsoever unless Evan initiates it first.

There has been a few times where Evan has looked up at Connor with a smile and Connor has actually thought he was about to combust. And then he had to go to AP Literature and pretend his heart wasn’t about to explode.

Alana Beck had given him a weird look when he walked into the room. He’d sat down and buried his face in his arms and pretended he was tired.

So yeah. Connor might have a minor crush on his fake best friend. No big deal. Shouldn’t be a big deal. He’s had crushes before and handled them fine. This shouldn’t be any different.

Except it is.

It’s different in every way. He starts every day at Evan’s locker. He eats lunch with Evan if they have the same lunch hour. He smiles at Evan in the hallway and Evan waves at him with a grin that Connor pretends isn’t fake because it hurts less. He ends his day at Evan’s locker. On Wednesdays, they go to the computer lab and print out Evan’s letter for his therapist. They plan their hang outs softly in the hallways, because Larry could still be checking Connor’s messages, even though Connor changes his password every two weeks. Connor texts Evan about anything. Random things. Random facts he finds online that Evan replies to with his own random facts.

The difference is Evan.

Evan is so many things. It’s a never ending list that Connor keeps adding to mentally because he loves to torture himself. And it hurts, because he’s so many things that Connor will never actually have in his life. He’s not sure how long he can actually keep up this fake friends thing. Purely because of the money. He’s starting to run out of his own money and has been slipping money from his mom’s purse or Larry’s wallet whenever he gets the chance, but it’s still risky.

Not that Connor won’t risk it for another few hours with Evan.

It’s kind of pathetic. It’s definitely pathetic.

But has Connor ever been anything other than pathetic?

Connor stares at the ceiling. He couldn’t sleep. And now he’s awake. At four in the morning on a Monday. He’s awake at four in the morning thinking about a boy with a heart stopping smile and a dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose.

Connor doesn’t actually know if he’s ever been gayer than he is in this exact moment in time.

Eventually he just gets out of bed because what’s the fucking point of lying around. A tiny part of his mind thinks ‘hey you could do homework right now’. Connor laughs at that part of his brain and grabs a sketchbook off his desk.

He actually managed to clean up some of his room. Some of his clothes are now in drawers instead of covering his floor. But he has succeeded in finding a bunch of empty sketchbooks, from back when he thought he was going to be drawing a lot more then he ended up doing.

He might have run out of purple in his watercolor palette, but at least he has about six empty sketchbooks that he can fill with garbage.

Connor puts in his headphones and sits on the floor, leaning against the edge of his bed, and draws mindlessly. He sort of lets the music inspire him, but he also just draws whatever comes to mind. He vaguely remembers someone once saying that he should draw interactions between people in his sketchbook, so he makes an attempt to not just draw a bunch of busts facing three quarters to the left.

He finds a random highlighter under his desk. He stares at it for a second before uncapping it and randomly adding neon yellow wherever he feels like it. Because it’s his sketchbook and he can do whatever the fuck he wants.

He’s still drawing when Zoe appears in his doorway.

Connor pulls out an earbud and looks up at her. “What?”

“Was just going to wake you up,” she says flatly. “Guess I don’t have to. Get your ass down to breakfast. We have to leave early today. Band.”

Connor rolls his eyes and closes his sketchbook. He tosses it on his bed. Whatever.

—«·»—

“You okay?” Evan asks when he joins Connor at the locker.

Connor shrugs. “Tired.”

“Is that all?” Evan furrows his eyebrows and there’s a crease in his forehead and Connor looks away.

“Yeah.” He is tired. He can feel his sleep schedule falling out of place, and it’s not just Evan. That’s not a good sign because then he has to reset it and that’s fucking annoying. “Here,” he says, holding out a ten. “My half for the pizza.”

There’s a second before Evan takes it. “You know I can’t eat all that pizza by myself anyway.” Connor thinks he might be trying for a light tone, but it seems forced.

Of course it’s forced. They aren’t actually friends, Evan just puts up with Connor.

Connor clenches his jaw.

Maybe the first thing on his list of mistakes should be asking Evan Hansen to be his fake friend.

—«·»—

Connor leans against Evan’s locker as he waits. Weird how much of his life revolves around Evan now. He’ll decide if that’s healthy or not later.

“Sup, dude,” Jared says, walking up to Connor.

Connor nods to him. He’s too tired to deal with Jared, but he’ll do his best. But only for Evan.

“Seen the acorn?” Jared asks.

Connor tries not to grimace. “Not since lunch.”

“Hello.” Alana joins them by the locker. The small hallway is getting crowded. “Are you waiting for Evan?”

Jared and Connor exchange a glance.

“Yeah,” Jared says. “How’d you guess?”

“This is Evan’s locker,” Alana says.

“Oh.”

“Why are we waiting for Evan?” Zoe asks.

Connor rolls his eyes. Where did she come from? “There was no ‘we’ here. It was just me.” He shoots a glare to Jared.

Jared scoffs. “You can’t hog my best friend.”

Connor raises his eyebrow. “Best friend?”

“Am I not bringing you home then?” Zoe asks, crossing her arms. “Because I don’t have rehearsal and I’m not waiting.”

“I’m good,” Connor says. “I’ll figure something out.”

Zoe makes a face. “Okay. Have fun.”

Alana turns and watches Zoe vanish into the crowd of students. “Zoe does a lot.”

“So do you,” Connor points out. “Did you need Evan?” For some reason, he doesn’t want Alana or Jared here. He wants Evan by himself. Because he’s a selfish asshole.

Alan shifts uncomfortably. “Not necessarily. I just wanted to say hi.”

“Hi,” Evan says.

Connor turns to see Evan behind him. Alana lifts a hand to wave.

“S-sorry for making you wait,” Evan apologizes.

Connor steps aside to let Evan into his locker. “It’s fine,” he promises.

Evan glances to Jared. “Wh-what’s up?”

“Just checking in on my…bud.” Jared awkwardly punches Evan in the shoulder.

Evan stares at him. “I’ll tell my mom,” he says after a moment.

“Cool cool cool chill.” Jared runs a hand over his hair. “Nice.”

Connor squints at Jared. “Are you having a stroke?”

Jared flips him off.

“How— how are you?” Evan asks Alana. “We haven’t, um, really—”

“Talked?” Alana interrupts. She shrugs. “I’m alright. Yourself?”

Evan glances to Connor. “Okay. Did you— were you just saying hi?”

Alana rocks back on her heals. “I actually had a question about student council? Or two. Either way it should only be a minute of your time!”

Evan blinks. “S-student council?”

She nods. “If you don’t mind! I actually have to run to make a poster but if you want to talk tomorrow—”

“Talk now,” Jared says, butting in. “I’ve got you, girl, I’m a master at illegal photoshop.” He points his thumb at himself. “Tell me what you need and I can get it to you in like fifteen.”

Alana eyes Jared suspiciously. “Are you sure?”

Jared scoffs. “Am I sure? Do you even know me?”

“Yes.”

Evan bites his lower lip to hold back a smile and Connor has to look away before it makes him smile.

Jared scowls. “Seriously, I’ve got you. It’s not hard, it’s some fucking text and a clipart picture. I’m not busting out inDesign or anything. Chill, talk to Evan, meet me in the computer lab when you’re done.”

Alana looks at him for a long moment before she says, “Okay. I’m trusting you.” She pulls out a notebook and quickly writes down instructions. Connor watches her write in fascination. He doesn’t pay enough attention in literature to know her handwriting and it’s a lot less neat than he thought it’d be. There’s a dramatic tilt to it and the letters loop and blur together.

Alana tears the page from her notebook and hands it to Jared. “Do what you can while I talk to Evan,” she says seriously. “Don’t send anything to print until I okay it, besides, we need the vice principal’s signature before we can start hanging these up. Don’t make this harder for me.”

Jared rolls his eyes and folds up the paper. “I get it I get it. I’m not five. See you losers. And Alana. See you in a bit.” He shoots them finger guns before turning and walking down the hallway toward the computer lab.

Alana looks at Connor.

Connor looks back.

Evan looks at Connor.

Connor gets the message.

“See you later, Ev,” Connor says.

Evan gives him a small smile. “I’ll text you.”

Connor hums as he walks away, doing a little salute to Alana as he turns.

Now what the fuck to do? He doesn’t want to go home yet and he doesn’t have a heavy enough jacket to go to the playground. It’s the last week of October and Mother Nature decided a bit of ice was needed before Halloween. The temperature keeps dipping below freezing and it’s some bullshit.

He glances back over his shoulder to see Evan and Alana at the end of the hallway. Alana is gesturing as Evan nods along. Connor’s stomach twists and bitter thoughts start to cloud his mind, but he shoves them away and focuses on the boringly beige color of the lockers. One after another. Exactly the same.

He finds his feet bringing him toward the computer lab. Even though it’s Monday, not Wednesday. Even though Jared is there. For some reason, the computer lab is the most comforting place in this dump.

That’s fucking depressing.

Connor shoulders the door open. Maybe if he sticks around in here Evan will show up with Alana. Or something.

So much of his day should not be devoted to thinking about Evan Hansen, but here he is.

Jared is sitting at one of the computers, bag on the floor and feet up on the table. He has a browser and about thirty tabs open. He chews on a pen as he types.

Jared glances up at Connor. He lowers the pen. “The fuck do you want?”

“Bored.” Connor kicks one of the chairs that’s not pushed in. “Why do you care?”

“Bored without Evan to harass?” Jared mutters.

Connor furrows his eyebrows. “What the fuck did you just say?”

“What do you think you heard?” Jared asks. “Cause it’s probably exactly that.”

Connor scoffs. “Okay. Nice one, douchebag.”

“Oh, shit, name calling!” Jared spins away from the computer and glares at Connor. “Are we name calling now? Is that what we’re doing?”

“I’m not harassing, Evan.” Connor crosses his arms. “Can’t say the same for you.”

Jared rolls his eyes. “I’ve known the guy for like twelve years, I know what the fuck I’m doing.”

Connor grits his teeth and digs his fingers into his jacket. “Do you? Do you really?”

“What?!” Jared snaps, standing up. “Do you have something you want to fucking say to me?”

Connor laughs sharply. “I have a few fucking things to say to you.”

“Go for it, bro,” Jared throws his arms out, “no one’s going to stop you!”

“Do you really think Evan is your best friend?” Connor is surprised that those are the first words out of his mouth. They taste sour and feel like acid. His insides are being eaten up by vicious venom and he’s drowning in bitterly cold thoughts.

“I’ve known him since we were five,” Jared says.

“And I’ve known Zoe since she was fucking born,” Connor snaps. “And she would be happier if I were dead so I wouldn’t hold us up as a great example for friendship. That’s not good enough.”

“Okay, okay! You think you’re Evan’s best friend?” Jared counters. “Because that’s bullshit. That’s bullshit and we both fucking know it. Because I know what this is and it’s not friendship.”

It isn’t and that hurts more than anything Jared could ever say to Connor. More than anything anyone could say to him. More than things Zoe has yelled at him, more than what Larry has spit.

More than things Connor has told himself when everything was dark and there was no way out.

Because it’s so fucking easy to pretend. To pretend that this is real and tangible and not— not what it is. Fake. A lie. A fabrication. Something that could be torn apart at any moment. It’s been two months, but it’s nothing more than a web that Connor and Evan have crafted. Nothing actually ties them together.

Connor is still lost. And Connor is still alone.

He almost chokes on his words and their bitterness. “You can’t get mad at me when all you’ve done for years is be a shitty friend,” he hisses.

“At least I’m not paying him and pretending!” Jared practically yells.

Connor digs his nails into the palm of his hand and he is so glad he and Jared are on opposite sides of the room. He has so many things he wants to yell or scream and just eject into the universe.

None of them can make it to his throat.

“Oh fuck you,” he snaps, spinning on his heel and storming toward the door. He throws them open and stalks down the hall, trying to breathe and stop the spiraling.

Before the doors shut, he can hear Jared shout, “Fuck you!”

—«·»—

It’s bitterly cold outside and Connor can’t feel his hands.

He goes to the playground. He sits on the top of the jungle gym and stares at the overgrown field. He remembers when they played bad games of soccer and tripped on the ditches in the grass. He looks at the parking lot. Old and forgotten. Cracked and run down.

There’s the pothole where Zoe dripped and fell on her face. She bit her bottom lip when she fell and cut up her face and was bleeding everywhere. Connor had been called down to the nurse’s office while the school called their mom because Zoe was hysterical. The blood was actually kind of cool (Zoe would think so too later when she wasn’t in pain) but Connor sat next to Zoe and held her hand while she cried and the nurse cleaned up the blood.

Connor sighs and pulls his knees up to his chest.

The more time he spends here — the more time he spends here when he isn’t high — the harder it is to not think of the memories. To not think of times when things weren’t constantly garbage.

Like the sewer grate a few feet away from where Zoe fell. Everyone used to say there was an alligator living down there. Everyone would gather around it and throw rocks inside, any rocks that would fit, to feed the alligator. Because a rock eating alligator living in the sewers made sense to a group of first graders.

Everything makes more sense when you’re a first grader. You say you’re going to marry someone because your friend wants to marry them and then you get in a fight because you can’t both marry the same person and you spill juice all over the place and learn how to add numbers together using shitty timed math tests.

When Connor was a first grader his biggest problem was usually what his mom packed him for snacks.

Now it’s a game of ‘is today the day I just fucking jump off a bridge or what?’

Unfortunately, jumping off a jungle gym built for seven year olds probably won’t even break his arm.

And now he’s back to Evan.

Connor wants to laugh. Or scream. Or tear his hair out. He is nothing to Evan and somehow Evan is almost everything to him and that is as fucking pathetic as he can get.

Instead he just bites down on his wrist. It doesn’t even hurt through his jacket, but it’s something to do. Something other than just—

Screaming on an abandoned playground.

People don’t typically give a shit but also someone would probably call the cops.

Jared wasn’t right but he also wasn’t wrong. And Connor wants to violently rip out the part of himself that likes Evan Hansen. The part of him that turns to mush when Evan smiles like that. The part of him that keeps cycling back to Evan’s hair, Evan’s eyes, Evan’s freckles, Evan’s voice, Evan’s laugh—

Connor wants to destroy the parts of himself that like Evan.

He would have to destroy all himself.

He bites down harder on his jacket and tries not to think. Thinking can only hurt more.

Evan gives Connor a worried look the next day. Connor meets him by his locker, just because it’s what they do. If it were up to him, he would be at home. Asleep. Or in the library. Asleep. Or reading. Or not…here. Not with Evan. With his polos and his smile and his hair and his eyes.

He got his cast off almost a week ago, but it’s still strange to see Evan with two bare arms. And for Evan to not have Connor’s name scribbled on him like some five year old got a hold of a Sharpie. Connor is both relieved and misses it.

It fucking sucks. But what doesn’t?

“You didn’t answer my texts last night,” Evan says slowly. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Connor grumbles. He lets his hair fall into his face because it means he has to see less of the world. And maybe it looks scarier or something. He wants to be left alone today. “Sorry, I fell asleep.”

He’s not lying. When his body was so cold that he thought he was going to be unable to move, he climbed down from the top of the jungle gym and walked home. The heat in the house made his skin tingle as he warmed up and his mom tried to talk to him but he just shook his head and went up to his room. He pushed everything but his comforter off his bed and went to sleep. He woke up around eleven, made a quesadilla in the microwave, ate it, watched YouTube for four hours, woke up, and stumbled into the car so Zoe could drive him to school.

It hadn’t really occurred to him to check his phone. Wasn’t like he had friends or anything.

Evan chews on his lip. “Okay,” he says softly. “Just like… Um, talk to me? If you need to?”

Connor meets Evan’s eyes and his heart leaps to his throat. Evan needs to stop…all of that. Especially the concerned look in his eyes, like he cares.

Evan is a good actor.

—«·»—

They have lunch hour together on Tuesdays. Usually Connor sits with Evan.

His head won’t stop spinning.

He hides in the back of the library and tries to do the assignment for literature. He reads the same paragraph four times before he buries his face in the pages. Hot tears prickle the corner of his eyes.

Fuck.

He should’ve skipped. He should’ve stayed home. He should’ve done anything else. Other than be here. This is bad, school is bad. The only thing worth it would be Evan, but he’s avoiding Evan because his mind is awful but his mind is right.

Alana gives him a worried look when he sits down in literature. Their class only has fourteen kids, but he still sits in the back in silence unless the teacher asks him specifically a question.

Today, Connor changes his seat.

He sits in the back corner. More isolated than usual. His head hurts, probably because he forced himself not to cry because he hates crying, and his brain keeps twisting into something darker and darker.

He looks up from his arms when a book is put down on the desk next to him.

Alana doesn’t say anything. She just puts her backpack down on the floor and spreads out her pens before she opens her notebook up.

Connor watches her write in her tilted looping letters for a moment before he puts his head back down.

—«·»—

Zoe has rehearsal. Connor walks home.

He doesn’t stop at Evan’s locker. He should. He really fucking should.

If anyone talks to him he’s going to snap. He’s going to break and yell and— he can’t.

He has a plan for when he gets home. Steal a loaf of bread from the kitchen. Maybe the butter. Go up to his room. Sit in bed and eat bread. Pass out. Wake up whenever. Eat. Go back to bed. School? Whatever.

His mom isn’t in the kitchen when he unlocks the door. Good. He grabs the least offensive loaf of bread from the cabinet and a random third of a stick of butter from the last time Cynthia baked and a butter knife from the drawer. He climbs the stairs silently and goes to his room and wishes that he had a door. He pulls out his laptop and opens a random YouTube video and lets it fade into background noise as he eats bread.

Fucking life.

He’s on his third slice when the doorbell rings. Connor looks down at his bed and accepts his fate of a lifetime of crumb filled sheets. The doorbell rings again.

“Mom?” he shouts.

There’s no response and the doorbell rings again.

“We fucking get it,” Connor mutters. He puts down the knife on his desk and climbs out of bed. He takes his time getting to the front door, hoping whoever is there will just go the fuck away. He frowns when he sees Zoe in the window. She meets his eye and flips him off.

“What did you forget your keys?” Connor asks as he opens the door.

“No, dumbass, but you forgot your friend.” Zoe jerks her thumb over her shoulder toward her car. Evan is standing by the passenger side door. “Nice going, dipshit,” she mutters shouldering him roughly as she passes him to get into the house.

Connor glances over his shoulder at her before looking back to Evan.

Evan is just staring at him. He doesn’t look like he’s going to move any time soon.

Conor sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Okay. Okay.

He pulls on his shoes and shouts to Zoe that he’s leaving the door open. She just sort of yells back at him and he figures that’s enough. Then he steps outside and walks toward Evan and, probably, death.

“What’s wrong?” Evan says as soon as Connor gets close.

“Nothing is wrong,” Connor says.

Evan scowls. “I— Come on, I know you better than that by now. We’re— We’ve…” He shakes his head. “I-I thought about it. A lot. I was worried I did something wrong. I went through everything I’ve done in the past two days— the past week. A-and I had nothing. You’ve been acting— Alana came to me asking how you were because of something that happened in lit so just…” He glares at Connor. Connor’s been trying so hard to not think about his eyes. “I told you to talk to me.”

“You aren’t my therapist, Ev,” Connor mutters. “You don’t need to hear this shit.”

“I’ll tell you if I can’t handle it,” Evan says with more confidence behind his words than Connor thinks he’s heard before. “But I told you to talk to me and you— you’re just isolating yourself. That’s not going to help.”

Connor tugs a hand through his hair. “Seriously it’s just— it happens sometimes. It’s not a big deal we don’t have to make into one.”

Evan crosses his arms. “Okay. Fine. If something is wrong, just tell me that. Tell me things are shitty. That’s all you have to say, because I get it. Tell me when you aren’t okay, don’t just be a dick.”

That’s a hell of a promise to make but… “Okay.”

Evan nods and pulls his backpack on. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I just… Figured we should talk than sooner than later.”

Connor looks from the car to Evan. “Do you…need a ride home?”

“I can walk,” Evan says. “I have sch-scholarship essays waiting at home for me. I’m not in a rush.”

“You wouldn’t be bothering Zoe,” Connor says softly. “I’ll take you.”

“I thought…” Evan trails off.

“I know where my license is. Larry isn’t as good at hiding things as he thinks.” Connor turns back to the house. “Stay here, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Connor ducks back inside the house. “Zoe I’m stealing the car!” he shouts, grabbing her keys from the bowl by the door.

“What?!”

He goes back to Larry’s office and digs through the files in the bottom desk drawer until he pulls his license from a manila folder.

Zoe stands at the front door with her arms crossed over her chest. “What are you doing?”

“I’m driving Evan home.” Connor tries to push past her, but Zoe pushes right back.

“You aren’t allowed to drive.”

Connor holds up his license. “Get fucked.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Did you break into Dad’s office?”

“There was no breaking and I live in this house, so move and let me take Evan home.” Zoe stands her ground. “I’m not high, Zo. And I know how to fucking drive. It’ll be fifteen minutes, the world won’t end.”

Zoe closes her eyes. “I… Just pay attention. Be safe. Don’t crash or anything.”

“Yeah yeah I’ll protect the car,” Connor mutters. “Stop being Mom.”

Zoe grimaces. “Okay. Drive him home. Whatever.” She steps to the side. “Not my fault if Dad grounds you for life.”

“Who cares.” Connor closes the front door on her. Evan looks up from his phone as the door slams shut. Connor holds up the keys. “Get in.”

“When was the last time you drove?” Evan asks, climbing into the passenger seat.

“God it’s been months.” Connor opens the door. He’s going to have to adjust the seat and mirrors and that’s going to piss Zoe off big time. “It’s probably like riding a bike or something.”

Evan nods slowly. “Okay… I think that’s reassuring?”

Connor rolls his eyes as he moves back the seat. “I’m not going to crash.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Evan says honestly as Connor buckles in and starts the car. “The biggest thing I’m worried about is you hitting a curb or forgetting the turn signal.”

“Fuck turn signals.” Connor flicks the turn signal down before he turns right out of the driveway. “Shit.”

Evan laughs.

Unlike Zoe, Connor doesn’t always listen to music when he drives. He’s perfectly fine driving in silence, even though it makes her want to scream. She hated it when he drove in silence, making it a point to always have headphones on her in case he had a day where he wanted to drive without music on.

It gives Connor time to think. Sometimes that’s harder with music on.

As they sit in almost weirdly comfortable silence, Connor glances at Evan out of the corner of his eyes. Evan is playing with the hem of his shirt and staring ahead at nothing.

Connor sighs. “I’m sorry. For today. And yesterday.”

Evan glances over to him. “…thank you. It’s…okay. I just want to know if you’re okay.”

For some reason it’s hard to swallow. Connor clears his throat. “So did you bribe Zoe into giving you a ride?”

“I-I stayed after for a little bit to talk to Alana,” Evan murmurs. “And then we passed the band room and I saw Zoe, s-so I thought…” He shrugs. “She might’ve thought it was weird but she was fine with it.”

“She wasn’t too much of an ass, right?”

“What do you mean?”

Connor adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. “You know… She didn’t ask too many questions or anything?”

Evan shifts uncomfortably. “I-I mean… She was— it was fine.”

Connor decides he’ll interrogate Zoe later. “Cool. How’s Alana?”

“Very busy,” Evan says seriously. “More student council stuff.”

“She trying to recruit you?”

“Uh…not exactly.” Connor raises his eyebrows as Evan worries his bottom lip. “She had an idea for a club she wants to start next semester and uh…wants my help with it.”

“You?” Evan winces. “Shit, no, I didn’t mean it that way,” Connor backtracks. “I just…you don’t do many extracurriculars or anything so it’s a surprise. Does she want you on the board or something?”

“Yes.” Evan coughs. “She… Yeah it’s, um, I-I don’t know if I’ll do it yet but I… Helping her start it up? I can do that. That doesn’t require much so I’m…okay with that.”

Connor nods. “Cool. I hope it’s…fun.” He ignores the twisting in his gut.

“Did Alana talk to you?” Evan asks suddenly.

Connor glances to him before looking back to the road. “No? Why?”

“Oh she just…” Evan gestures with one of his hands. “At the beginning of the school year we were talking about something and she wanted to talk to you about something and she said she was going to— I mean she had a question for you and I told her that maybe it wasn’t the best idea and, well I mean, she said she was going to ask you anyway so I just wasn’t sure if she ever did or…”

“She didn’t,” Connor says slowly. “What was the question?” He remembers Alana asking him all sorts of questions when he came back to school after his attempt. He also remembers ignoring them. He’s pretty sure there were a few times when he just walked away.

Evan goes quiet. Connor stops at a stop sign and looks both ways, pausing for longer than he usually would because drivers on this road don’t give a fuck.

“She wanted you to tell the student body your story,” Evan blurts out.

Connor is really glad they’re at a stop sign. “What?!”

Evan pulls on the collar of his shirt. “She— Um, she asked if you would be, or if I might be interested in um— Because of the stigma around mental health and suicide that maybe it would— I told her no.”

Connor closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Thank you,” he says after a moment. He opens his eyes and looks to Evan. “Seriously. I don’t… No one else needs to know that shit. My story— no one wants to hear that shit.”

“I think that was her point,” Evan says softly.

Connor meets his eyes for a second and then looks back to the road, pressing the gas. “Not my story,” he repeats. “I don’t want or need that kind of attention.”

“I know.” Evan sighs. “I was really worried that she— Alana can be, um…persistent.”

“Tell me about it,” Connor mutters. He turns into Evan’s driveway. “Here you go, Hansen.”

Evan gives him a weak smile and unbuckles his seatbelt. “Thanks. I’ll text you.”

“I’ll text you back,” Connor promises.

Evan lights up and Connor shoves his heart back into the darkness of his chest.

From: dickbag To: assface we have to talk

From: assface To: dickbag fuc k u

Connor rolls his eyes. He can’t even believe he’s trying but he is and Jared is being Jared.

From: dickbag To: assface right back at you but seriously. today

He leans against Evan’s locker, flipping his phone over in his hands as he waits for a response. He might not give a shit about Jared, but for some reason Evan does, so he’s going to try to fix this. Because that’s what a good person would do.

Connor’s lived too much of his life in the gray zone. Gray thoughts, gray clothing, gray morality— he can do one nice thing if it’ll make Evan happier.

From: assface To: dickbag y should i

From: dickbag To: assface evan

From: assface To: dickbag fuck off where??

Connor rolls his eyes.

“Hi,” Evan says, arms full of textbooks. “Band?”

Connor nods. “Yeah. Something about an audition or something? I don’t know, she wanted time in the practice rooms and I don’t have a say in anything.”

Evan gives him a crooked smile. “I don’t think being here a little early is too bad.”

Connor looks back down at his phone with a shrug.

From: dickbag To: assface computer lab evan will be there for a little bit we can talk after he leaves

From: assface To: dickbage fine but still fuk u

Connor really should’ve just blocked Jared’s number as soon as he got it.

—«·»—

“Jared!” Evan says in surprise when him and Connor walk into the computer lab. “W-what are you doing here?”

Jared looks up from the computer. “StuCo stuff for Lana. I guess this morning the council decided to change some of the info on the posters so,” he gestures to the screen, “here the fuck I am.”

“Doesn’t Alana have people for that?” Connor asks as Evan pulls out his laptop.

“Her people don’t do shit. Does this picture look bad?”

Connor squints at the screen. “It looks like bad clipart.”

“Perfect.” Jared saves the document.

“Sent,” Evan says. He shuts his laptop. “I’ll be right back.”

Connor nods to him.

Jared coughs awkwardly as Evan leaves for the printers.

When Evan comes back with his letter in his hands, he glances between Jared and Connor. “Everything…okay?”

“Super chill,” Jared confirms, clicking randomly on the poster.

“Jared is shit at choosing fonts,” Connor says.

Jared flips Connor off and Evan smiles. Win.

“I have to go,” Evan says, putting away his laptop and pulling on his backpack. “My, um, my mom is actually bringing me today so?” He gestures over his shoulder. “Yeah. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Whatever,” Jared says.

Connor glares at him before saying, “Yeah sure. I’ll text you.”

Evan bounces on his toes before he leaves the room.

Connor turns to Jared with a raised eyebrow. “Fucking smooth.”

Jared keeps his eyes on the screen. “Uh huh.”

“You’re a giant asshole, you know that, right?”

Jared pushes his glasses up his nose. “So are you.” He closes his illegal photoshop and spins to face Connor. “Here we are. Two assholes in a computer lab.”

They stare at each other for a long minute.

“You told me to be here,” Jared points out.

“Fuck, you’re right,” Connor mutters. “Okay. I’m..sorry.” Jared whistles. “Shut the fuck up. I’m not sorry I called you a dick because you are a dick. And you’re a bad friend. Like a really shitty one. But I’ll apologize for yelling.”

“That was a horrible apology,” Jared muses. “But fine. I’m sorry I said you were harassing Evan. But I still think what you’re doing is fucking…bad? I don’t know it feels bad. It’s a bad plan.”

“You told us that and still helped.”

Jared spins in the chair before standing up. “Okay, yeah. I did. But honestly I didn’t think either of you would get invested and—”

“What do you mean?” Connor interrupts.

Jared searches his face. “You know…?”

“No?”

He sighs. “I thought this shit would last like a week, okay? And now we’re getting into more long term usage instead of the eight days I had assumed.” He pauses. “You’re using him.”

“Yeah and you pretend to use him.” Connor crosses his arms. “Are we really so fucking different?”

Jared runs his hand through his hair. “Just two guys, being dicks to Evan Hansen. We should probably be better about that, huh?”

“Probably.” Connor holds out his hand to Jared. “Truce?”

Jared raises an eyebrow. “Not friends?” he asks as he shakes Connor’s hand. “Okay. Truce.”

#connor murphy #evan hansen #tree bros #convan #deh fanfic #to have a friend #my fics #ayy

41 notes · View notes

goldenkiva · 4 years

Text

unfiltered rambling (this is a (long) vent post; cw for some irl death mentions, sui and self harm mention (nothing in reality), bad mental health time, all that jazz

well it’s 7:30 am and ive been awake since 4 am. which is an improvement really. i slept at 12:30am ish, in contrast to constantly sleeping at 8 am or later the past month or so. and it’s been taking a very bad toll on me lately mentally. everything has been building up and probably toyin’s death (yes the one who was found dead, we were classmates in middle/high school...) was my breaking point as i had a very bad panic attack a few days after. that lasted a good 22 hours before i fully calmed down. it always takes me 5-9 hours to calm down from anxiety or trauma related bad times as i have no real coping mechanisms and i will just literally do nothing but stay huddled up in bed until the unbearable feeling goes away. but that one. was just really bad. i think i also accidentally upset one of my best friends before that which also attributed to it (we’re fine now.) it’s been a bit since i had that panic attack but i still feel so bad all the time. sometimes i joke about wataru giving me chest pain bc i love him so much but i feel like i havent experienced physical emotion in so long i just want to feel it even if it’s painful. i dont self harm so dw about that btw. but i rarely shed even a single tear anymore when ive always been a total cry baby. i only cry full on tears and sobs now when im being over stimulated during a conversation. i just genuinely want to feel physically excited or happy or sad or whatever. i want to feel physical emotion again and not just numbness with an occasional laff or on the verge of getting watery eyes but not even real crying or whatever.

i also had to get a new phone bc my dumb clumsy self dropped my phone flat on the screen a second time and it was unrepairable which makes me sad bc i only had this phone for two years and it still ran perfectly well. i wanted to keep it for 3-4 years at least...i got a new one ordered yesterday and im splitting price with my dad n i just feel bad i had to get a new one at all bc because of covid and shit my parents are only getting half the usual business and we already dont make a ton. thankfully my parents and sister are the type to not spend recklessly in general (i am prob the biggest spender...) but that wont stop my dumb of ass generalized anxiety disorder from making me worry about bankruptcy or poverty or some other extreme. i hate it bc i cant do anything about these thoughts except just what feels like sitting in mud and i slowly sink in. i wish i was an artist with more clout because i desperately want to be have consistent (or any) income. even before covid i always feel bad about not having a job. ik it’s hard to balance school and work anyway so it’s fine if im not working but it sucks. american college is a scam. at least i didnt go to an art school. (well. i am in art program in college. but not going to an arts dedicated school like ringling. which is significantly more expensive. if i went to art school id be significantly more likely to end up in very heavy debt) but i hate having gad. i hate not having any real coping mechanisms. i feel frustrated and a little annoyed when i asked about coping mechanisms for my anxiety with my therapist she just told me breathing exercises. which ig can be valuable but ik in my heart this wont help me at all. perhaps it’s un-dx’d adhd with rsd making me feel that way that makes me refuse to even want to do them. all my medical and health issues are also a contribution to my gad and financial terrors. sometimes it makes me wanna die but i wont do that. bc my friends and family would genuinely be very heartbroken if i were to suddenly be gone especially if by my own hand. i wouldnt want anyone to blame themselves either...

the only things genuinely making me feel anything lately is wataru and buck tick. it almost makes me a little upset how little amount of things make me happy or even feel anything rn. im reading a tragedy visual novel rn (which is very good and well written and i generally like tragedies and i find them indulgent) that i am enjoying very much yet i feel barley anything while reading it. i immensely miss the buck tick concert streams so bad. watching them over the month and half they streamed every saturday morning really put how much they love making music and performing in a brand new light to me, and watching that last concert bestias locus solus was just. so amazing. i dont know how to talk about it other than i was genuinely touched. they went all out playing at that concert stage bc it was their first time performing there (at the time in their 31 year career, 33 this year) and the unplugged performances and sakura especially got me so hard. im not good with words so im not doing a good job at all expressing how much that concert (along with the day in question 2017) made me feel. i miss it. i want to buy the dvds so bad but theyre so expensive and now is not a time for reckless spending. but one day i will attain them and experience the happiness they bring me again. im sad my friends arent rly into them the same degree i am but ig it really is such a personalized feeling. i was already in a state of dread and depression when i got into the band. but im still glad my other friends enjoy them and tell me they enjoy their music. their stuff slaps. theyre just an amazing band. a band not restricted by genre. a band who makes music because they love it and love performing and love their fans and dont get warped in the ideas of fame or fortune, and are fully okay with being normal people...a band with the same line up since their pro debut in 1989 because the members all love and care about each other so much. theyre still going strong in their mid to late 50s as they were in their late teens. they make me so happy...

well it’s 8 am now and if youve read this whole thing, thanks i guess? that sounds rude, but im just kinda sittin in the mud. im still in the midst of cleaning my room. i am not someone to recklessly hurt myself or anything like that so dont worry about that. i’ll be fine. probably. if you wanna listen to buck tick heres their spotify :) i recommend their albums atom miraiha no. 09, no.0 (especially the live performance version), kuratta taiyo, darker than darkness style 1993, aku no hana, and their kemonotachi no yoru/rondo double single. they slap so good. also spotify is missing literally like 15 years worth of their music from the 00s-10s. you can find downloads online though. theyre also releasing a new single in august im very excited for it. also, the singer of the band (atsushi sakurai) did a collab with sheena ringo where he sung the bg vocals of her song elopers, which was also made in sakurai’s image and she got it really dead set on tbqh. sheena ringo loves bt so yall should too :)

#jack txt

0 notes

mysalpingectomy · 7 years

Text

The Big Day!

Skin prep The morning started with some Chlorhexidine wipes I was given at pre-op - they decrease skin bacteria. I know sometimes people are instructed to wash with Dial antibacterial for the same reason. Food/water prep I wasn’t supposed to have food after midnight the day before. I also couldn’t have liquids after 6am surgery day. Standard stuff.

Transport Prep They also required that someone accompanied me so I wouldn’t have to drive back home (I was certainly not in the shape to drive!) At the Clinic I checked in at 8:30 am. After signing some papers I had to give a urine sample to confirm I wasn’t pregnant. (I wasn’t!)

Then I got into my hospital gown. They had some socks to go with it. I stored my belongings in a bag they’d give me when I was done.

After that it was a medical parade of various nurses and doctors. One took my bp and gave me Tylenol + gabapentin, another put an IV catheter in my hand. My doctor came to speak with me, followed by the anesthesia attending. The anesthesiologist asked if I was prone to motion sickness. I can be if I’m in the back seat of a car on a windy road. He put a Scopalamine patch behind my ear to help with nausea. It lasts for 3 days and I can take it off anytime I feel ready. I was asked at least 5 different times what my name, birthday and procedure was. I’m glad they have multiple checks, that way I don’t end up missing a foot. Everyone was really nice and made sure I was comfortable and had any questions answered.

A little after 10am I was taken to the operating room. I walked in, no gurney needed. It looked just like the ORs on tv. Since I’m typically on the other side of the table (prior medical experience assisting in surgery) it was funny to be the one staring up at the OR lights.

I was introduced to everyone in the room. The nurse taking care of me was super kind and made me feel very relaxed about the process.

I got onto the table and my nurse put a bunch of warm blankets on me. I saw my doctor walk in, and an Oxygen mask was placed over my nose/mouth. Before I got the sleepy juice, I told everyone thanks for working on me. The last thing I remembered was the anesthetist telling me the propofol might feel a little spicy going in. Then I was totally out.

Recovery Room I woke up in recovery and had a bunch of warm blankets on me. Still had my IV in. Someone said my name and told me it was 12:15 and everything went fine. I could feel some compression units on my legs. They keep blood clots from happening.

I was very groggy and it felt like a huge effort to open my eyes. I could feel my abdomen hurting and mumbled “more dugs please.”

They asked me what my pain was on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being excruciating.

I said 6, so I got some fentanyl and an anti-nausea med I don’t recall. I was drug-incuced handing out compliments and I remember telling one nurse she had really beautiful hair lol.

I then fell back asleep. When I woke it was 2pm. They gave me some cookie/cracker options, along with ice chips and tea. Man, those ice chips were great! My mouth was so dry I couldn’t eat much of the cookies.

The abdominal pain wasn’t so bad, but now I was very nauseous. I could still taste the anesthetic gas. I discovered my body doesn’t like anesthesia and I’m one of the lucky people who gets aggressive post-op nausea. Everything made me want to throw up. They added a few more anti-nausea drugs - I had 4 different anti-nausea drugs on board and still was queazy.

My vitals were fine and I was on track to be released. They called my family back to go over discharge instructions. It’s good they did because I only remember about half of what they said.

My ride went to pull the car up and I got help putting on my clothes. I needed a lot of assistance, my body felt super water logged. They put a pad on my underwear - vaginal bleeding is common for the first couple days. In the process of dressing I managed to throw up several more times. It was more like dry-heaving since I didn’t have much left in me.

I was still groggy and felt like I could have slept in recovery for another 4 hours. It was warm and comfortable and people were nice. Totally a good place to stay! But I was physically fine and technically no longer needing recovery assistance, so the baby bird got the boot out of the nest.

I got wheeled to the car. I really, really appreciated being wheeled because I was in no state to walk. It was now around 3pm.

The car ride home was me being half asleep and holding onto my barf bag like it was the most precious object I’d ever owned.

Home

With some help I stumbled up stairs and got into bed. I wanted to be asleep again. My mom woke me with soup and the prescribed medication. I was sent home with 600mg ibuprofen, Percocet and stool softeners.

I declined the Percocet and just went with ibuprofen. I had read many things about opioid addiction and didn’t want to touch it.

Unfortunately, I was still very nauseous - I threw up all the soup and medication. I threw up the water. Standing made me barf. Going back to sitting also caused barfing. Changing my position in bed - more barfing.

The only thing that helped was me falling asleep.

When I was lightly awake, I could actually feel the gas bubbles moving around. I had some shoulder soreness, but it wasn’t bad. Rolling over fixed that.

Finally, around midnight I was able to hold down some jello and ibuprofen. Jello is the most amazing food in the world, especially if you haven’t eaten in 24 hours and have been vomiting an epic amount. I swear, that jello was glorious! The next day would be better!

2 notes · View notes

melibee44 · 5 years

Text

Dilaudidn’t

As I was led to the bed and shown the gown I was to put on, I nearly passed out. Everything turned black and I grabbed the bed and caught myself. The nurse told me to sit while we got sorted out. Then my mama helped me get into the gown and get settled in the bed. I was so sore by this point. Not just the incision, interestingly, but also on the left-hand side of the back of my neck. In fact, it was getting to the point of taking my attention away from my flaming red incision and chest.

It was another 2 hours before the doctor came to see me. Considering the average wait times I saw online, I did pretty well - definitely above average for this trip to the ER. She said she was calling in someone from ENT and confirmed that I had an infection, most likely Cellulitis, a common skin infection (especially after surgery) that isn’t too serious, as long as it’s treated right away. (So yay for getting on it early!) And said it was clear I needed something for pain.

Phew! What a relief to have that immediately recognized. She sent a nurse in to start an IV and get me set up with Dilaudid and an antibiotic. My veins were still challenging, but getting the IV started went much better than the time before. It wasn’t long before I had my first dose of painkillers and the antibiotic.

The Dilaudid was barely noticeable, so it wasn’t long before they had given me a second and then third dose. They actually maxed me out, but it didn’t provide a whole lot of relief. I was hoping that was because of the infection. Sometimes an infection can cause pain that’s hard to eliminate.

At some point during the wee hours, someone from ENT (ears nose & throat) came to see me. She informed me that she was the doc who assisted on my surgery and apologized for taking so long, but had been up for 36 hours, performing surgeries when she got the call and needed a nap for a couple of hours before coming.

I was shocked to hear that surgeons are allowed to go that long without sleep and still operate! Pilots are barred from flying after 12 hours, I believe. And truckers face limits as well... but cutting people open? Who needs to be well rested for that? My FIL, who works in aviation safety, loves to site studies showing that after 17 hours awake, we exhibit signs of impairment, similar to drinking.

Anyway, she would get to go back home and rest once she was done with me, I hope. She took a look at my neck and chest and concurred that it was cellulitis. She wrote a prescription for an antibiotic to take at home for seven days to clear it up. Hopefully that would provide some relief.

We took that opportunity to try and ask her about the surgery, since I hadn’t talked to anyone else who was there. She reiterated that I had a very large mass (duh) and they really had to dig around to get it all. She wasn’t surprised that I was in pain. I asked about something other than tramadol since it didn’t seem to be working.

I got the same lines. It doesn’t work perfectly and it doesn’t work for everyone. I could add some Tylenol (already established that didn’t work) if I needed something more, but that’s all they give for that surgery and it was all I was getting. I reiterated that neither of those worked and she restated that it was my only option.

By that point, I was really hoping that the infection was to blame for all the stubborn pain and that it would be gone as the infection cleared up.

I was discharged sometime between 4:00 and 5:00 AM and mama drove us back out to her house. My dad went and picked up the antibiotic prescription later that morning while I slept hard. I spent all of that Thursday sleeping off the infection, waking only for meds and food. I had to set alarms or rely on others to help. But I slept like it was my job all day and all night.

Not tired of me yet?

#healthcare #hospital #hospital glam #infection #cellulitis #spoonie #spoonielife #pain management #pain pain go away #thyroid #surgery #post surgery

0 notes

mary-gs-travel · 7 years

Text

Two Days

How can I describe a months worth of time onboard the Africa Mercy in Douala, Cameroon? I am finding the task impossible, so today I set out to describe 2 days. Let’s start with this Monday.

A Messy, Magnificent, Manic Monday on the Mercy Ship

0630 Wake up to alarm. Climb out of top bunk as quietly as possible with a flashlight to avoid waking up my 3 roommates (If they’ve managed to sleep through my alarm). Brush teeth, wash face, and dress into my blue scrubs that I laid out on top of the mini-fridge the night before.

0645 Walk up 1 flight of stairs to stand in line in dining hall. Grab a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee. Sit in corner and keep head down. Eye contact invites the morning people to engage you in conversation; this must be avoided until the caffeine helps my brain realize that yes, I am, in fact, awake.

0700 Go down 2 flights of stairs to Deck 3. This is where work begins. I am assigned as Charge Nurse this dayshift, so as I step onto the ward I sign all the Day Crew in and out and make sure all our Nurses have arrived. I greet the few patients that are already awake. I lead the team in a quick prayer, and then we start handover report. I can feel the patient in Bed 10 poking my back through the curtain as we pray, and when I peak around the corner of the curtain I see her mischievous grin.

0715 Read the notes from the weekend’s Charge Nurses. Our woman in Bed 13 has been ill since Friday with various symptoms that don’t seem to make sense.

0730 Rounds (check on the patients) with the current surgeon onboard.

0735 I learn that 1 of our 2 bathrooms for the patients is not draining properly and has flooded. Page the Plumber.

0740 We’re out of a handful of medications. I scamper over to B-ward to pilfer some of what we need until Pharmacy comes by to restock our supply.

0745 Go up to Deck 6 for Monday Morning Meeting, where I take notes to relay information given back to the nurses who are on the wards and will miss the meeting. We learn about some places to go and not to go in town and about events that will be happening on the ship this week.

0830 Return to ward and do rounds (check on the patients) with Medical Doctor onboard. Be interrupted multiple times with questions and news that the second of our 2 toilets is no longer flushing. Send up a mental prayer that the plumber will arrive soon. Bed 4 has a hernia in addition to her childbirth injury. It causes her much discomfort, but our general surgeon is not yet onboard and the surgery schedule for hernias is already full. We can treat this patient’s women’s health issue, but not the hernia. I try to remind myself that treating something is better than nothing, but my insides feel rotten. If this women had proper access to healthcare, like I do in my home country, than she never would have suffered this childbirth injury in the first place.

0900 Check in with Nurse Team Leader and ask her all the questions that have arisen over the weekend and the past two hours. Hear the good news that 8 of our patients (5 who have already been discharged and 3 who are still onboard) will be in the Dress Ceremony today to celebrate their healing.

0930 Watch as a Nurse and Day Crew inform Bed 10 that she will be in the Dress Ceremony today. Enjoy the smiles.

1000 One of our Day Crew isn’t feeling well. At the Crew Clinic it was found she has a fever, so I sign her out to go home and rest.

1015 The toilets and vacuum system seem to be working again, thank you to the plumber. One of our Day Crew mopped up all the water and cleaned both bathrooms without anyone asking him to.

1030 Lab results are in, hand delivered by our Lab Crew. I page the Medical Doctor. Bed 13’s labs are not great, but not worse. Bed 10 has an infection, so after the dress ceremony she’ll need to stay a few more days for IV antibiotics. Two other patients have infections that will require antibiotics. One patient’s culture showed no infection, so she will get to be discharged tomorrow.

1100 Meet with Admissions, OR and Team Leaders to determine what beds the patients being admitted to the hospital this evening will be placed in. Today is a screening day for Women’s Health, and we don’t yet know who our admissions will be. Per suggestion of my Team Leader I have 3 beds set aside for admissions, but we won’t know until the last minute who those admissions will be.

1105 Meet with Ward Supervisor to discuss nurse staffing for the next 3 shifts. She leads us in a mini-devotional before we talk about how many nurses we have and how many we need to take care of our patients.

1130 Return to ward. Organize Nurse/Day Crew Lunch breaks. The Day Crew already had planned who would go first and who would go second.

1200 Another Day Crew feels unwell and complains of headache. I send her to the Crew Clinic and hope no one else is going to be sick today.

1230 Sit at desk and update patient information from the morning into the computer system while fielding questions from Nurses and Day Crew about various patient issues. Make assignments for which nurses will take care of which patients (including our still unknown admissions) on the next shift.

1250 I say goodbye to our patient being discharged. She is in her early twenties and came to us for a biopsy of a tumor. The results showed that the patient has advanced cancer that is beyond our abilities to treat. She is being sent back home with her husband. While onboard she and her husband received counseling with our Hospital Chaplaincy Team, and we’ve sent her with pain medication to manage her symptoms, but it doesn’t feel like enough. It is not enough. She deserves so much more than this.

1255 Go up to dining hall to grab lunch before it closes at 1300. Onion Soup and carrot sticks.

1320 Return to Ward. Check on Patients, Nurses and Daycrew. Find a saline syringe sitting on the Charge Nurse keyboard. Squirt saline water gun style at Nurse Ashley. Watch Bed 10 laugh.

1330 Find out that I was supposed to send half my Daycrew to a Malaria education session a half hour ago, but it’s too late now to send anyone.

1340 Bed 13 is vomiting.

1345 Find Malaria Education for Daycrew flyer underneath my stack of papers on the Charge Nurse desk… oh, that’s where that was. Try to input the last of the shift’s information into the computer before the next shift arrives.

1400 Shift change. I relay all the information from Monday Morning Meeting. Then we pray together before I give a handover report in the hallway (it’s too noisy in the ward) to the Charge Nurse taking my place.

1445 Return to the ward. All the patients except Bed 13 have been moved down the E-ward for the Dress Ceremony. I’m exhausted and am not sure if I really want to go sit for the Ceremony, but our Team Leader encourages me to go. “It’s the best part,” she says.

1500 I’m in E-Ward for the Dress Ceremony. 8 of our Ladies are walking into the ward singing songs of praise and worship. They are dressed in bright colors and look radiant. Our chaplaincy team has spent the morning setting up the ward and preparing the ladies. We celebrate with them and sing songs of worship. Each lady takes a turn to speak into the microphone and tell their story. They tell stories of loss turned to triumph. Each woman is presented with a gift. I get to present a gift to a patient that we all referred to as our Mama on the Ward. I have never given a gift before during a Dress Ceremony, and I am so honored that I was able to present Mama with hers.

1600 Picture time with the ladies in their Dress Ceremony outfits. We shared lots of hugs and laughter and joy. This is also the time where it starts to become bittersweet because soon I will have to say goodbye.

1620 I see a positive malaria test sitting on the counter in the Ward. So that’s why Bed 13 has been so ill.

1630 I fill in a few orders in charts that I hadn’t had time to do during the dayshift. I say goodbye to the patients in the ward and give hugs to the ladies headed off the ship.

1645 I walk up a flight of stairs, down the hallway, and into my cabin. Time to sit for a moment and process my day.

1730 Grabbed dinner from the dining hall. Dinner is a hamburger patty on bread with carrot sticks and a papaya. I took my meal to a conference room where a group of my friends and I watched Agent Carter (we are attempting to watch all the Marvel Movies and some TV shows in chronological order during this field service).

1900 Shower

1930 Play a round of Qwirkle with friends in the dining hall.

2100 Climb up into my bed and watch Game of Thrones on Movienight (our online video sharing system on the ship) until I fall asleep.

And then here is Today, Tuesday, a typical day off.

0930 Wake up to find 2 of my roommates had woken up and left while I slept. I lay in bed drowsing a little while longer because today I have no where to rush off to.

1000 My 3rd roommate has left and I have the cabin to myself. I turn on all the lights and use my electric kettle to boil some water to make coffee with my pour-over pot. I play some music without having to use headphones. I drink the Cameroonian coffee that I bought from the grocery store a few days ago. Sadly, it’s not very good. But I drink it slowly while I journal and relax on the couch in our room.

1200 I get dressed and venture out of my cabin to go look out a window. The sky is grey, cloud covered. I grab some lunch (Onion Soup, again, and a salad) from the dining hall and take it to the café. I eat lunch with friends and then spend the afternoon drinking more coffee and working on this record of my days. People filter through the area and I take many breaks from writing to chat.

1630 Nurse Ashley stops by my table to say hello. Promises revenge for yesterdays water-gun saline prank.

1715 Dinner is being served, but I’m not hungry. I grab a plate and wrap it up to save for later because dinner closes at 1830. I change into my Cameroon-appropriate exercise gear (got to keep those knees covered) and head out to the dock. I run some laps around our dock, which is lined with cargo containers and barbed wire that serves as our “Wall”.

1845 Watch the sunset from Deck 8. The clouds have broken up and every now and then you can see snatches of Mount Cameroon off in the distance.

1930 Shower followed by dinner. I get a FaceTime call from home and get to see my sister and my nieces.

2000 Back to my room to finish this.

So there you go. A typical day at work and a typical day off. I felt like these two days expressed the highs and lows of ship life and working in a volunteer hospital. The pros and cons of living in such a tight knit community. The joys and sorrows of the Women’s Health ward.

#mercyships #nurselife #africamercy

1 note · View note

mrsannventures · 6 years

Text

First Time Mom

Hello everyone.

It’s been weeks since I’ve been here and I was still very pregnant then.

Now, I have already given birth to our precious little girl, whom we name Lyanna (Yes, you thought right. Lyanna.. Named after the daughter of Lord Rickard Stark and sister of Brandon, Eddard, and Benjen Stark. The wife of Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, mother of Jon Snow. Lyanna Stark. Lol. My husband just LOVES GoT.).

My Birth Story

On September 29, 2018, Saturday afternoon, I was scheduled for another checkup with my OB. I was 39wks + 5, two more days to go before my EDD. Earlier that day I was fervently hoping that we would find my daughter already engaged so I can go into labor very soon. I was ready.

Apparently when the doctor conducted an Internal Examination, it was found that my baby’s head was still way up (Station -2). A cord coil was also found in my 3rd trimester scans, and my OB explained that this might be one of the reasons why my baby won’t drop. Also my Non Stress Test that day showed I was already having contractions.. So.. Baby not engaged plus a tightening cord coil plus contractions on my 39th week? It was not a good sign. My doctor surprised me by saying that we I can’t have a normal delivery with this baby. We need to deliver her through a c-section and I should get admitted soon. “How soon?”, I asked. “You can go straight to the hospital after this. I’ll be with you tonight.”

Guys.. SHOOKT was an understatement. I nearly fainted inside the clinic. I called my mom, who was just waiting outside, so she can talk to my doctor and ask her what to do. The doctor gave her a paper, I guess it was a recommendation slip that we need to be admitted. Before I knew it, we were on our way to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital at 2:58 PM. I was messaging my husband, who was as shocked as I am, giving him updates and the doctor’s explanation why we need to have an immediate c-section. My husband isn’t good with these kinds of things so he said he wanted to puke his guts out because of his nervousness. Anyway, the hospital staff we’re very accommodating. The nurse at the ER surprised me when she asked, “Are you Nong’s wife?” I said, I am. I thought my MIL had already told the staff about me coming (Wow. Pa-VIP), but she said she just recognized me from my husband’s FB. She introduced herself as my husband’s batchmate in highschool. She proceeded on checking my vitals and placed me on IV. My initial BP when I arrived was quite high, the nurse said it was maybe because I was still in shock or nervous. She chatted with me for a while until my mom finished processing my admission papers. Around 4 PM, I was on my was to the operating room.

All along I thought, we’ll just quickly drop by the operating room so the Anesthesiologist can brief me of the procedure and then I will be brought to my hospital suite to rest.. but nope. That didn’t happen. Few minutes before 5PM, the Anesthesiologist rushed inside the OR, chatted with my mom a bit and told me to relax. She went away to get ready and a male nurse came to prep me. Surprise surprise! It was one of my husband’s HS batchmates as well.

I was brought to the delivery room soon after, around 5:30PM. My vitals were checked and the nurse gave me some medicines that I asked what for but didn’t manage to remember their answers because I was sleepy. At 6PM, more nurse came rushing in, prepping me and all. I didn’t bother to question what they’re doing. I just slept. I don’t exactly know what time the doctors came in to give me anesthesia, but I do remember curling up for it to be administered. I was operated on painlessly, that it was almost a bliss. I was still have asleep and half awake then after a dew moments, I heard my baby’s first cry.

I remember her first cry, and the doctor saying “delivered.. 7PM.” My baby was still crying while the nurses cleaned her up. I was still groggy but I stared as they clean her. I’m pretty sure I asked questions like “What was her weight?” and “How long is she?” but I didn’t remember their answers then. My baby was 7lbs 3oz and 53cm long. The nurses brought my baby to me for skin to skin contact and they made her suck my right breast. I’m not sure what else I’ve mumbled but I was thinking how fair skinned and small faced my baby was. It was like she’s not Filipino. But her nose looks a lot like her father’s and her cheeks were mine. Lol. I even saw one of the nurses poking her cheeks then my cheeks. I just laughed groggily.

I was also not sure when they brought my baby to the Nursery and when they brought me to the recovery room. I was still sleepy and chilling so hard. I kept asking the nurse who was checking on me how long I need to be in there. They told me two hours, but they let me out a few minutes before 11PM.

My family and my in laws were already waiting for me at our hospital suite. They already saw Lyanna at the nursery room and we’re very glad that the procedure went well. My baby was brought to me the next day and we stayed at the hospital for just two days because I can already walk. I don’t wanna stay there for too long because hospitals mainly scare me.

Being a first time mom was definitely not easy but every time I look at my baby’s face, all the PAGOD and PUYAT drains out.

Also an update: My husband’s home and was very happy to see our little lady. He just won’t take his eyes off her.

Sorry for typo errors or what nots. I’m typing this while my baby and husband sleeps. 😂

#me2day #mum

12 notes · View notes

cosmosogler · 7 years

Text

hi guys. today cleo woke me up before 5 am.

i had fallen asleep sometime after 1 so i was Not Happy. mom asked me what i was doing up and i don’t remember if i actually responded or not. i let the dogs outside. wiley was a hassle to get back inside because it was kind of nice out. then as soon as i closed the door behind me and turned around diogi wanted to go outside, because she hadn’t wanted to go outside ten minutes previously. by the time i herded her over to the grass and blocked her off from wandering around the pool the sun was up.

i went back to sleep even though my body was awake. i think i had craig dreams but they only made me mildly angry. i was mostly frustrated with the people around him. which has been happening in those dreams the last few times i’ve had them over the last, like, year and a half.

then cleo woke me up by shrieking at 8, and also my alarm went off for some ungodly reason. i booted everyone else out of my bed and out of my room and closed the door. then cleo spent the next literal hour rattling my door and howling. i didn’t want to hurt her or anything, but i did want to cry. by the time she went downstairs to wake someone else up my alarm went off again. i slept in an extra 45 minutes despite the rattling starting up again sometime in the last 15 minutes of my “nap.”

i was really too tired to do much today. i caught up on some comics, i watched a lot of not-video-game youtube videos, and i started looking up some resources for group-based activities around town. there was something that looked really cool that meets next tuesday... i think it’s all day, or in the evening, so it won’t conflict with therapy.

i had more pesto leftovers with mom. this time i let her start eating way before me so by the time i sat down her concert of disgusting vomit-inducing mouth noises was almost finished. in hell everyone communicates by chewing with their mouths open. the lip-smacking asmr videos make me want to scream and throw my computer.

i don’t actually, like, go and listen to them or anything. but it’s come up before.

sleep deprivation for this many nights in a row (5 i think? 6?) has reduced my patience level to approximately absolute zero. i was having trouble sleeping all year but the last week has been... something special.

i washed my siblings’ bed sheets today instead of dusting. mom wants me to wash all of the sheets every week. i don’t know if that’s really the most efficient use of our water, considering every advice site i’ve looked at has said something along the lines of “washing your sheets every two weeks is great, but once a month or so is also good.”

maybe there’s no drawbacks to washing your sheets that often. i just don’t know how fast they wear out.

this is bad, but despite telling oz i was too tired to watch a movie, i sat and watched a really long critique of the bbc sherlock show in the late afternoon. i guess part of it was watching something that long by myself i didn’t have to also talk to anyone...

about halfway through i paused to greet my brother and father as they had returned from their mud run, feed the dogs, and get some thai food with mom. i think i hurt myself trying to eat food that was too spicy... i felt really sick afterward and my stomach is still kind of grouchy with me. even though i am also hungry again because i wasn’t actually full when i stopped eating, i just couldn’t deal with my nerves disintegrating any more.

i keep getting spicy food hoping i’ll develop a better tolerance. i’ve got enough of one to tell different kinds of spices apart and appreciate different “flavors” of “OH GOD WHY IT’S SO HOT IT HURTS” and not get that sick. but the legendary Thai Hot seems to be forever out of my range. Double Thai Hot exists only in rumors. i saw jay get Double Thai Hot once. he caught on fire. and also cried.

i really love the soups that this place makes, but mom doesn’t like the very unique flavors so we didn’t get any. i wouldn’t have ordered the most spice that the cook is willing to give white people if we had gotten soup haha...

ehh, i boxed the leftovers for later. it’s not as good reheated, but i have a strong need for pahd thai and one sitting isn’t going to satisfy me.

oh yeah! around lunchtime i went out and blasted the dogs with the hose. i didn’t brush them afterward because there are five dogs and i didn’t want anyone to get sat on trying to get my brush’s attention. i didn’t take anyone to the mail box today though because it was over 100 even after the sun went down. even i didn’t want to walk the 2 minutes over to the mailbox.

and i maybe figured out what i’m gonna do with that gold bottle cap. i’m gonna slap it on a shiny magikarp and ship him off on the wonder trade. since it has a... less helpful nature (but not as bad as the other two) and no good ivs it will benefit the most from a gold bottle cap, which boosts all your stats to the maximum. all of the pokemon i am hyper training only need half their stats boosted. it’s not too hard to get 3 regular bottle caps, it just takes a while, especially if i am not using the fishing hole because i can’t be bothered to split my attention between film theory and watching my 3ds screen for a 1-second alert that i have to react to.

tomorrow... i gotta email my apartment complex or see if i can find the bed size myself so we can do the new sheets and stuff. and i gotta contact my relatives about my graduation party near the end of july. i think it’s the 23rd. and maybe i will check out one of the social activities available this side of town if i can find one that meets on sundays and is also interesting and/or small enough that it won’t be overwhelming. i would also like to maybe finish the owl picture since i have not worked on that in basically a whole week. and i gotta get this grody nail polish off my fingernails. it can stay on my toenails though because it still looks nice and is also maybe hiding a crack from when i accidentally stomped on my own toes while walking wiley.

it’s kind of weird but i make a very specific series of noises when i am hurt. i think being angry and then disappointed helps me get over the fact that it hurts a little more quickly. like when eve or diogi step on me with their claws, or when i bang my shin against a corner, or when i step on my toes and crack the nail. or burn my hands because the sink water is extremely hot for some reason.

i think... maybe tomorrow i will also try to do one thing from my to-do jar for the first time in over a week. i’ve done most of the major dusting so i will probably only need to devote about 5 minutes to that tomorrow. or maybe i could wipe down the window shades since the duster doesn’t do anything but kick up the dirt.

oh, also marisol is getting back in tomorrow evening so i can finally return her angle and hre devil. whiskey is a good boy. he likes to be picked up and cuddled with, and he is also the size of a small floppy pillow. and also he doesn’t SCREAM AT 4:30 IN THE MORNING WHICH IS A GREAT PERK!!!

it’s about 10 minutes early, but i think i am going to stop soon and get ready for bed. maybe i should take the dogs outside so cleo will wake me up at 6 instead of before 5.

one thing that just occurred to me is that i didn’t feel as depressed today. i mean yeah i felt extremely lethargic and nauseous and i had a headache for literally the whole day no matter how much water i drank. but i also just didn’t put much time into thinking about how bad i feel. i think that is about as good as it gets for me. i don’t know if that’s healthy or not though. since it might just be holding them in instead of dealing with them? i can’t tell if i am avoiding my bad feelings or successfully coping with them. tomorrow i might make some oatmeal cookies... our mixes and doughs are starting to creep up to their expiration dates. asher is getting back in about a week, so i will bake the snickerdoodles around that time. i will have to check for nuts in the mix though. like “this product was made in a facility that also processes nuts” or whatever.

i think maybe trying to jump back on the “doing things” wagon will help me go forward again. and maybe find a goal, since my first one of “learn better cognitive skills to deal with incoming anxiety” got smashed with the whole “you’re not working hard to get better” thing. i guess doing things isn’t working hard. but it keeps me in a better mood than not doing things.

i have ranked my goals in order from “short-term” to “realistically attainable at some point in the future when broken into smaller steps” to “life goals” to “optional bonus round.” well, i don’t really have a lot of goals to put into any of those categories, but i feel that it will be a useful ladder to use if i do find some goals to have. maybe that will help me draw a picture of “who i want to be” which will give me some kind of vague idea of what i should look like in the future? what philosophies are important to me? how do i want to treat other people? what do i think about these and these issues and what am i going to do about them?

i will try not to overwhelm myself right away and just kind of pick things up as i walk by them for now. and i will keep doing a few stretches during the day.

maybe, starting on monday or tuesday, i will put some time into trying to feel invested in my writing again. i still remember where a lot of “following that train of thought” needs to happen. after i get everything down for real this time i can start cutting unnecessary things out and making an actual next draft. that’s always the REALLY hard part for me.

i think i could do that on tuesday. ask for some input from my therapist in specifically feeling more interested in things i create.

ok, now it is just after 12:25. i have now made full use of my allotted journal time and i feel like i maybe got somewhere with it which is nice. now i just gotta pick up all these beans and play the lottery.

1 note · View note

cornbyte · 7 years

Text

It all happened within 24 hours. I got home from work around 7pm, usual for Tuesdays. I had had such a bad day at work, nothing really that bad happened, but I was cooped up in a room all day with just my thoughts and I had been so hard on myself. I just felt like getting home and snuggling with Jasper and crying. But I got home and started getting Jasper ready to go for a walk, and he was SO excited to see me that he was bouncing around and was literally bounding down the hallway, turning around to make sure I was close by and then bounding at me. He was being so goofy that I thought to myself, “Aw man, he makes me feel so much better. None of that matters.” Our walk was so great, we went on his favorite route and he saw three of his friends: The old man that loves him (Jasper is a little suspicious of him but accepts the pats), the angry chihuahua (that he loves pestering) and Mr. Corgi (who he also loves to pester). It was very exciting. All of the plum trees were blossoming and they smelled so good that I kept grabbing some and smelling them and he wanted to see what they were, so I showed him some and he gave it a good sniff then decided he didn’t care because he couldn’t eat it. So I set the flowers on his head, and one stayed on there for awhile. We went back to my apartment where an hour later I started getting sad again, so I laid on his dog bed and was hugging him and being sad while he rolled around on me and nuzzled me. It was making me feel so much better, and then I thought, “what the hell am I going to do when he dies?” And I started crying.

No more than two hours later, I started getting ready to pick up Andrew from work. He was acting sad, like something was wrong, and I thought it was because he thought I was leaving and not coming back (I’d just recently come back from a 1 day trip to see my mom). I texted Andrew that something was wrong with Jasper, but I just thought that he was sad. I picked up Andrew from work and we went straight back to my apartment to take him out for a walk. He wouldn’t get up even when I picked up his leash, and he gave me that sad look again and I knew something was wrong. I offered him his favorite treat to see if he’d get up and he wouldn’t even take it. I was thinking, maybe he was blocked up? He did just get into the garbage yesterday and didn’t poop much on his walk earlier today? So we eventually lifted him up, and he hobbled over to the stairs and refused to go down them. I carried him down and we took him outside, and he just laid down and looked at me, like he was trying to tell me something was wrong. So Andrew carried him back inside and we laid him on my bed while we called the emergency vet at WSU (it was close to 12am at this point). They told me to bring him in, so we did immediately. It was a long car ride, because he was deteriorating fast (drooling, shaking, looking completely bewildered). We finally got there and they rushed him to the back, and that was when I could really tell how much pain he was in.

It was a long night of sitting in the waiting room. The vet came out and told us that he had fluid in his abdomen. Then we waited some more. She came back out with three tubes filled with blood, and said it was bad. That’s when I started crying. We waited some more. She came back out to tell me that he had a bleeding mass, most likely on his spleen. She gave me about a million different ways that it could play through, from best case scenario, the bleeding would resolve itself, and worst case scenario being that it’s a cancerous mass and he has 6 months to live. It was so overwhelming. But it was clear that he probably needed surgery to stop the bleeding, but they needed more imaging done so that they knew what they were dealing with and to also keep him overnight. She gave me a quote of $5000-6000 for the surgery, which I needed to pay upfront as a deposit in the morning. The plan was that they’d keep him overnight and do surgery in the morning, after the imaging. We were able to go see him in the ICU before we left, and he was doing a lot better after getting IV fluids. He came out of his cage and we hugged him a lot, and then he went back into his cage on his own and plopped down and was acting generally happy and okay with his sleepover situation. The vet was optimistic that fluids helped so much. But was still bleeding, and the 6 months to live prognosis was repeated.

So then we had to go home without him. We were barely out of the parking lot when he broke down. I put my car in park at a stop sign and we held each other and cried. Neither of us really slept at all that night, I kept waking up thinking I heard my phone ring. Morning came around and I got ahold of my parents, and they said they’d help me with the deposit. The WSU vet tech called me at 7am, saying he made it through the night but needed the deposit because he needed surgery. We got it figured out and they started on imaging on abdomen (to see how big the bleeding mass was and if they could remove it with a splenectomy, and to also see if his liver was affected) and cardiac imaging (to see if it was affected as well before they proceeded with surgery). Then it was just waiting. Andrew and I just sat on my bed and waited. It was around noon I think when the vet called back.

He said that Jasper had masses on his spleen and throughout his liver, and they took a biopsy and had it tested. He was diagnosed with hepatic hemangiosarcoma in his spleen and liver, an aggressive and fast spreading cancer. They gave me the option to do the surgery and remove his spleen and portions of his liver to stop the bleeding, and afterwards chemotherapy. With this they couldn’t even guarantee that the bleeding could be stopped, but if it could he would have only 3 months to live. The other option was to just do chemotherapy, with no guarantee how long he would live, what response he would have, or if the bleeding would stop. The last option was exploratory surgery and then reassess.

I called my mom and talked to Andrew, and decided that the best option was to bring him home and do an in-home euthanasia. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I knew that he was already such a sensitive boy, and recovering from surgery would have taken many painful months and that doing that to him would just be cruel and selfish. I could barely wrap my head around it, because how could this be happening? He’s so active and happy. In January, we saw the vet to test one of his new fatty lumps (he had a lot, and they were always fatty tumors but I had every single one checked). He also had a cough and we did chest xrays and blood work, and the vet gave him a clean bill of health because he was completely healthy (except for his weight and that his teeth needed cleaned again). It was literally 4 months ago. It was literally the night before he had been romping around down the hallway and letting me put flowers on his head.

So I called my vet and made the appointment for 5:30 pm. We went and got him at 2pm, but the wait took forever. I just wanted to be with him again because we only had hours left. When we finally got him, he was so lethargic and confused and just collapsed on my lap. The team that worked on him said goodbye to him and gave me the blanket he’d been using and reassured me that I was making the right decision. He had to be carried to my car and I sat in the back with him on the way back and held his head. I couldn’t believe that it was happening

We finally laid him down in his bed and laid down next to him. We cried and gave him a few pepperoni. I held him and stroked his ears and his face. He was shaking and kept snapping his head up, looking around all bewildered. I think he was in pain and didn’t know where it was coming from. He was so in and out of it. But I had a heart to heart with him, close enough so he could hear me and his eyes locked with mine as if he understood what I was saying. Our vet was delayed to 6:30, and at that point I was just crying because I couldn’t stand seeing him in so much pain. I felt like I was prolonging it. He was so painful and was scared except for when he would realize it was me or where he was. It hadn’t even been 24 fucking hours since our walk when he’d been perfectly fine.

And then our vet and a vet tech came over. We’d been saying our goodbyes for a couple hours by then, but we said bye one last time. Seeing and feeling him shake and the heat coming off of him was killing me. I held him in my arms and kissed his head when he fell asleep. He was already so limp to begin with that there was no difference from awake to asleep. And then he was gone. I held him while the tech got his pawprint. Eventually I had to leave his side. Andrew held my face against his chest and wouldn’t let go until they had his body inside the little cardboard coffin that they brought.

And just like that my best friend for 10 years was gone forever.

The treat I had used to try to get him up was still on my counter. There’s still food in his bowl with his tennis ball right next to it. The three empty dog beds so that he would always have a comfy place to be. His treats, supplements, and poop bags are right next to the door. The hook on my fridge for his leash. My tiny studio apartment was just mine and Jasper’s. That’s what made it so great. It still feels like he’s still at the vet and he’s coming back. He was my best friend and my roommate. My schedule revolved around him.

It’s been 5 days since he’s died but it still feels like yesterday. My mom came up the day after he died. I took work off and so did Andrew, and today is the first day in my apartment by myself. I don’t know what I would’ve done without Andrew. He’s held me and cried with me and has barely left my side. I know that it put him back to when he lost his mom. He had been alone for that. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him. The day after Jasper died, we had to go down to our vet to pay for the euthanasia and his cremation. He helped me pick out an urn. And when it came time to pay he refused to let me pay, even though it was almost $400. I had the money but he wouldn’t let me and said it was the least he could do. His kindness and love has really held me together.

I know that Jasper loved me so much and that I was his person. He was my soul dog and my best buddy. At 15 years old I know that he lived a good, long life, even though that doesn’t stop this from being so sudden. I’m so thankful that we came into each others lives. He always wanted me to be happy and was quick to investigate and nuzzle me whenever I was crying. He loved Andrew too, and Andrew loved him. I hope Jasper rests easy knowing that Andrew will always keep me safe. I’ll never have another dog like him. I keep expecting to see his face, or hear him walking across the hardwood floor. Every second I spend away from my apartment, I get hit with that guilt of “I need to get home to my dog”, and then I remember. I know that with time it’ll get better, but whenever I think about that I think about wanting to go back into time just to spend more time with him. I miss him so much.

#ive been replaying this in my head in an endless loop so im hoping writing it out helps me #jasper #long

2 notes · View notes