#i say bronchitis but its not actually bronchitis

[3-aem]

actually i dont even give af that yall tried, im pissed that the stress from the whole event triggered a bronchitis episode and I leave for AX in 2 weeks THATS NOT ENOUGH TIME TO HEAL,

[myname-isnia]

Last thing I expected to do today was spend 10 minutes arguing with my grandma over a cat that's been dead for nearly a decade and yet here we are

[mediumgayitalian]

prev

———

Twenty minutes later, Solace hurries out of his cabin in cowboy boots.

And jeans.

Nico gapes at him.

“Go go go go go, questions later,” Will hisses, herding him behind the Apollo cabin. “We are on a time limit, we gotta —”

“You’re wearing close-toed shoes.”

“Yes, yes, sometimes I wear the clothes that I own. Wild. Let’s go.” Will tugs, uselessly, on his arm, but Nico’s half-certain his jaw has taken root in the ground, cementing him in place, because what the actual shit.

“Solace, you wore flip-flops to the snow-smothered bus stop in January. I thought you had, like, a condition!”

“I do have a condition. It’s called You Are Not Hurrying, Death Breath, let’s go —”

This time when he pulls, Nico stumbles after him, ducking under windowsills and inching around flower gardens. Every time someone so much as looks in their direction, Will plants both hands on his chest and shoves them into a corner somewhere, craning his neck to watch until they move on. Every time he does, another piece of Nico’s soul breaks away from his body and descends into hell. There is an actual trail of bones and tilled earth and dead grass behind him. Will doesn’t need to worry about being stealthy — the death aura of Nico’s dignity is large enough to scare off anything within a four mile radius.

“In here!”

Undeterred by the death aura, for some reason, Will seizes his bicep and shoves him in a crack between the Hypnos and Dionysus cabins. He slips in a millisecond later, crowding him against the warm bricks, forearm pressed awkwardly next to Nico’s head.

“Hnggh,” Nico gasps, mournfully wishing his last sliver of self-respect goodbye. Rest in fucking peace. “Do you have to be so — close, Will, gods —”

“Shhh!”

“If you shush me again I am going to rip your throat out —”

“Go, go, go!”

Yanked forward again, Nico doesn’t have the time to finish his threat. This time, at least, they sprint the final stretch to the shed without any more hiding and shoving.

Thank all the fucking gods. One more second of Will’s stupid torso — since fucking when does he wear polo shirts, huh, what the shit fuck is up with that — pressed against his and Nico’s bronchitis was going to come back. And this time he’s going to succumb to it.

“Okay,” Will says. He stands in front of a tarp-covered lump, gripping one side and jutting his chin out at the other. “On three, we tear this off and start pushing. We need past Thalia’s tree in under thirty seconds. Got it?”

“No,” Nico says stubbornly, “you still haven’t explained what the rush is —”

“One two three go!”

Will, unfortunately, has been tricking ADHD teenagers into doing things they don’t want to do for years, so Nico’s ripping off the tarp and shoving the chariot out of its stall faster than he can register what he’s doing. He practically sprints to keep up with Will, chariot wheels creaking happily as they rush over stones and sticks and forgotten weapons.

“We’re leaving now, Chiron! Bye!” Will hollers, moving too fast to give him a second to respond. Luckily, Chiron is similarly busy, galloping after a speeding Harley without more than a backwards wave and a sharp don’t die, please!

“That dynamite I gave Harley’ll only keep everyone distracted another thirty seconds,” Will mutters, ignoring Nico’s alarmed the fucking what you gave Harley, “so we need to move, let’s go.”

“Will — slow down a half fucking second, Christ, not everyone is seventy percent leg — we don’t even have pegasi!”

“Will you keep it down.” Will looks back and forth, eyes wide, like he’s worried someone is going to pop up with a pack of the winged animals. “Just — stop asking questions! We’re almost home free!”

“You’ve gone insane. It’s finally, actually happened, after all these years, who woulda thought, fully bonkers at age sixteen —”

“Oh, shut up.”

Muttering his complaints, Nico helps him push the infernal chariot down Half-Blood Hill. Among his grievances, he makes it abundantly clear that 1) this is stupid, 2) he did not agree to physical labour, 3) he would not have agreed to come if he had known about the physical labour, and 4) this is stupid.

“Just a few more yards, then we can —”

“Okay, no, that’s it.” Nico lets go of the chariot, letting the wheel dig into the soft ground and send the whole thing halting. He meets Will’s pout head-on; arms crossed, jaw set, foot tapping, refusing to give into those big blue eyes.

“C’mon, Neeks.” A faint explosion sounds off in the distance. Will’s eyes get more pleading, more hopeful. “We won’t have much time after the diversion wears off…”

“You have three seconds before I turn the hell around, Solace.”

“Please?”

“One.”

He pushes uselessly at the chariot. It spins a sad little circle without someone pushing the other side. “Neeks!”

“Two.”

“Alright, fine! Help me push again and I’ll explain on the way down.”

“Much easier when you just do as I say,” Nico grumbles, starting to push the stupid (horseless and therefore useless) chariot again. “Isn’t it?”

Will, predictably, rolls his eyes, although he can’t quite help the smile that pulls at his lips. Nico tells the butterflies that go buck fucking wild in his stomach to go to hell. This does nothing.

“How much do you know about the chariot?” Will asks eventually, after a couple minutes of shoving the stupid thing past a deep trench in the soil, leftover from the war. (Nico is going to set the fucking thing on fire. It’s a flying chariot — shouldn’t it be lightweight? Why is he suffering?) They’re nearly three quarters down the hill, and it takes everything Nico has not to risk it all and shadow travel the last couple dozen feet. Yeah, it might kill him, but then his problem would immediately go away. Tempting does not begin to cover it.

“Uh, big source of drama, right? Apollo and Ares worked together to seize it, argued over who got to keep it?”

He cuts a careful glance over to Will, well aware it’s a sensitive topic. He knows the question isn’t a trap — Will would never do that to him — but it’s probably best to tread lightly. As far as he’s concerned, this is a sore point that’ll take more than a couple years to heal.

Luckily, there’s no tension to Will’s face. “Mhm. I wasn’t there for much of the planning, ‘cause I was busy in the infirmary and also, like, twelve, but it took a lot of time on both sides. When Michael and everyone seized it, though, it glowed gold.”

“…Ah.”

Will snorts at his awkwardness, nudging his shoulder. “Yeah. Sure made it hard for the Ares cabin to claim, as dicey as it may be. Here, help me park it on the side of the road.”

There’s a thatch of weeds and undergrowth separating the road from the base of the hill, so dragging the chariot over is a struggle and a half. Nico can’t help but think that this task would be very easy if the chariot was harnessed to a couple pegasi and flying over the fucking thatch, as it is meant to do. When he voices this very valid thought, Will does not respond.

He does walk into a thistle, though, so Nico feels considerably better about the whole ordeal.

“The thing about the blessing —” Will grunts, yanking the chariot onto the gravel shoulder with one final tug — “is that it’s not that big of a deal. My dad blesses shit all the time. Our cabin is blessed. The infirmary is blessed. Hell, half my scalpels are blessed, and I throw those things out all the time ‘cause they’re dangerous when they get dull. Just because my dad blessed it doesn’t mean we actually have to keep it.”

“Okay…” Nico says slowly, “then why was it such a big deal?”

“The blessing on its own wasn’t.” Will’s voice gets fainter as he lowers himself onto the pavement, dragging himself under the belly of the chariot. Nico is confused for a full three seconds before a particularly rough patch of asphalt snags Will’s shirt and drags, and wow, are those jeans low rise. His throat is suddenly very dry. “Blessing a chariot on the other hand…”

Will makes a dorky little noise of success, crawling back from under the chariot. When he resurfaces, he’s grinning, carved piece of wood the same material as the chariot clenched in his hand. There’s soot smeared across his left cheek, his curls have tangled themselves into more of a mess than usual, and there are three separate scuff marks on his nice jeans.

Nico ducks his head, hiding a smile. What a dorky loser. Even dressed up as he is (boy, has Nico fallen low, if he’s calling jeans and cowboy boots dressed up), he still manages to look like…Will.

A really, really hot version of Will, but. Whatever. Details.

“The hell is that?”

“This,” Will says grandly, feeling around the wall of the chariot until he finds a specific spot, “is the reason my brother gave a fuck about a dumbass chariot.” He sticks the edge of the wooden tool in a tiny groove, wedging it open to reveal a hidden panel and a small, golden button. Nico meets Will’s grin with raised eyebrows, impressed.

“What do you know about Michael?”

“Uh, not too much.”

“You think he, in any reality, would have had that much interest in a hunk of wood?”

Nico had scarcely met him more than a couple times, but Michael Yew made an impression, that was for sure. For someone who was shorter than Nico when he was ten years old, he sure took up a lot of space. In the few times Nico remembers seeing him, he’d been concerned with his bow, his camera, or showing any given person who so much as blinked at him wrong just how quickly he could turn their ass concave. If Nico is correct, actually, the one time he and a pegasus had been in the same vicinity, they’d hissed at each other. Nico didn’t even know pegasi could hiss.

He tries to find a delicate way to say this.

“He seemed more interested in other endeavours,” he says politely.

Will laughs loudly. “He would rather shove an arrow in his eye than race a chariot!” His bright smile is impossible not to match, and Nico is relieved to find him totally comfortable, relaxed; hell, even excited. Usually, any talk of his siblings, even fond, makes him quiet. He’s glad for this change, however unusual. “Man, I loved my brother more than anything, but he was the most ornery motherfucker I’ve ever met in my life. He taught me every swear in every language by the time I was nine, just because he knew it would drive Lee batty. He didn’t care about some spoil of war.”

He smirks, wide and devilish, and Nico’s knees go weak. Dimples like that should be illegal.

“He was smart, though. And he figured, if dad’s blessing made this chariot anything like his own…”

He reaches out and presses the golden button with his thumb, letting go and standing back once he registers a faint click. After a couple seconds, the chariot begins to glow, soft at first, then brighter, then Nico has to squeeze his eyes shut to avoid the stinging burn, and then when he opens them, it —

He gapes. Will grins.

Where the chariot used to be, is now a shiny, brand-new, black and yellow motorbike, two helmets gleaming on the sparkling leather seat.

“…Then it might be a little more than some lousy chariot.”

Without waiting for Nico to pick his jaw off the floor, Will rushes forward. He tosses one of the helmets to Nico — which he barely manages to catch, still working on processing what the fuck just happened — and tucks the other under his arm. Nico happens to notice how his biceps flex with the action, and then vows to have his father bankrupt the entire polo shirt industry, because he can never be caught lacking like this by any mortal soul. It’s humiliating.

There’s a click as Will unlatches the seat, lifting it up to access the compartment under it. He pulls out a bundle mass of black fabric, and with a flick of his shoulders reveals it to be a fucking leather jacket and oh, gods, Nico takes back the polo shirt complaints, he can live with the polo shirt. This is too much. This is —

“Any time you’re done ogling at me, you can climb on,” Will calls out. He doesn’t even have the good grace to look in Nico’s direction, instead sliding on the seat facing resolutely forward, amused smirk on his face. And because he wants Nico to die, actually, he straightens his jacket, making sure it fits his shoulders right (by the gods does it ever) brushes his hair backwards (there is no genuine reason for someone’s hair to actually shine in the sunlight) and slides his helmet on. When he finally does look back in Nico’s direction, through his raised visor, the combined sight of his sparkling blue eyes and the cut of his face under the angular helmet actually gives him tachycardia.

“I hate you,” Nico croaks. “Not joking.”

Will throws his head back and laughs, baring his long, tanned throat. Nico follows the bob of his adam’s apple like Tantalus does the forbidden fruit. It’s horrible, and what’s worse is that Will is visibly preening like the fuckin’ peacock he is. Someone should remind him he’s basically a dressed up turkey. Or something. Nico’s brain is operating at twenty percent capacity, his ability to metaphor properly is a secondary concern.

“Just get over here, you goober. We’re on a time limit, remember?”

Shoving his helmet on to hide his flaming face, Nico does, sliding on with a healthy four inches of space between them.

“Mm, not gonna work, ParaNorman. This thing’s enchanted, we’ll be going well over a hundred. Hold on properly.”

Praying to seven different gods for strength, at once, Nico scooches the agonizing few inches closer.

“Hands around waist, Death Boy.”

“I’m fucking — I’m getting there, you asshole, gimme a goddamn second.”

“Do you need help?”

“I need you to shut the fuck up so I can focus.”

Maybe it’s the healer in him, or maybe there actually is a god looking out for Nico and they decide to have mercy. Maybe it’s a third option. Either way, Will reaches back and wraps his callused hands around Nico’s wrist, tugging them gently forward and resting them on the narrow curve of his hips. Nico holds them there, along with his breath, until some of the panicky tension starts to loosen in his chest, and he relaxes forward, resting his chest against Will’s back.

“There,” he says quietly, humming with approval when Nico’s arms link properly around his waist. He squeezes his clasped wrists once — a silent you good? — and waits for Nico’s minute nod, face buried in the back of Will’s neck, before starting up the engine, revving it twice before leaning forward, body flush to the bike. Nico can practically feel his grin, it’s so clear in his mind’s eye, in the delight thrumming through Will’s entire body, that he can’t help his own smile, too, can’t help but feel the thrum of the machine, the sharp smell in the air. He tightens his hold and Will lets out a loud, whooping laugh.

“Let’s ride, baby!”

With a push off the ground and a twist of a thrusters, they’re off, leaving behind only the echo of the roaring engine and the joyful, startled sound of Nico’s shriek.

———

next

[swampgallows]

i know it was bad before covid too but people seem more adamant than ever about denying that they're sick or need to go to the doctor. people chest coughing for over a month and go "it's just a cold, im just about over it actually". colds last like 3-4 days, a week at most. also never understood why people say "just" the flu, it's like saying "just" bronchitis or some shit. legit i think ive only had the flu maybe once in my life as a child, who are these people that think getting sick 5-6 times a year is normal.

yes i know american healthcare system whatever i also know people have become delusional and amnesiac about what typical health looks like. "just my allergies acting up" "some kind of weird summer flu" "oh its just this mysterious thing going around" all of your immune systems are in the gutter. if you've had covid more than twice you are functionally immunocompromised. i would say well over half the US is in this boat yet they all are more willing to believe there's some "new" thing popping up getting them sick instead of the one giant global pandemic infecting them multiple times and has now made them susceptible to the everyday things their immune system could normally fight off. if you're more fatigued than usual, your memory is shot, randomly feel out of breath or have your heart racing, or find yourself struggling with tasks that used to be simple, you may even have long covid. as others have said we're now four years out from the start of covid and are in the finding out stage of fucking around, and i fear the next 5 years are only gonna get worse as unmitigated spread and repeat infections continue

[asoulofatlantis]

So guys I am back yet again, after almost 3 weeks of a Horror that still doesn't seem to end. First I had a mild stomach flue and since it was (relatively) mild, I decided to go to work, since... you know I work had for the money. After taking multiple warning that I should not take the symptoms so lightly, I felt like I've finally recovered but for some reason I was still feeling weak. Just a few days after seemingly recovering from the stomach-flue, my immune system decided to kick me for what I did and for the first time in many, many years (this was a normal ocurrecence back when I was a sickly child tho) I had the flu. Like the actual 6 days of dangerously high fever - kind of flue. It took an unhealthy cocktail of pain medicine to even get the fever down a bit. On day 7 the fever was FINALLY gone and I though my body would gain back strength and the ability to eat. (I was not having hunger nor did anything taste good, so whatever I had been eating was me trying to force some energy source into my immensly weakened body) BUT I did not. I was feelings worse, even with the fever gone. So the doctor found out that the flu had weakened my immune system even further, so on top off still recovering from the flue I had bronchitis and Sinusitis. Giving him no choice but to pump a bunch a medicine inside me, including some antibiotics. And after 3 days of Antibiotics I am still not feeling very well. I still have to take painkiller against the Sinusitis, while my stomach start to revolt against all the medicine, by making me feel nauseous (AGAIN) and I am also still couching slime. So... not sure how long it takes for the Antibiotiks to kick in, but I feel like if they don't, the doctor will see me yet again on Friday, while my work place won't see me again next week - which isn't such a bad thing, since I found out just the day when I broke down with the fever, that my colleagues told my boss I am a lazy bitch who never ever does anything anyway. So.... no one is gonna miss me around there anyway.

All that aside... I had a lot of brain fog fopr the past weeks but I think I am not capable of FINALLY going back to Squall and FF8, so that I can rush to finish this game soon. So... lets go!

Can someone please tell me why I was so stupid to think it was a good idea to stop playing right at the beginning of the Galbadia-Garden-Attack? I have no idea were to go XD

I know this was basically the last chance for the Ring exchange, but neither of them know that. So... the timing is really weird. Especially since, Zell was supposed to be tired because he worked on remaking that ring for Rinoa, but what did he do all night, if he didn't even have the original ring as a reference? Its all a bit weird, if you ask me, even if I get that it was supposed to be a secret from Squall.

THIS GIRL IS GOING ON MY NERVES! She constantly gets herself in trouble and for some reason, only Squall can save her, as if he has nothing better to do as the leader of the garden then to babysit that spoiled so called princess. ARG!

Personal preferences aside... I think it speaks for Squall that he didn't let anyone else die, just because "his" Rinoa was in danger. He IS the Leader. He can not afford to play favorites in a situation like this.

This is so unreasonable, its making me angry. "Hey Squall, we might be going to die soon under your leadership, but your biggest priority should be saving Rinoa right now, because this is a lovestory!" is basically what they are saying and I can not even put into words how stupid that is!

This minigame is so freaking stupid!

XD I mean, its nice that she managed to hold on for so long because she wanted to gave him back the ring an all... but it was not nice of Zell to just give the ring to her without Squalls permission, especially after promising to not lose it or anything like this.

They are his best and only friends and sometimes as a friend, you have to do what's best for them, even if they do not agree with you. And I think it is good that Raijin and Fujin understand that. They could have just followed Seifer blindly like they did so far, but they do understand that that is not the way to save him.

For some reason my mods don't work anymore. That is really bad timing...

I did not take Rinoa with me and it makes no sense at all that the other would let her come running alone when they don't know if we might be in the middle of the fight with Edea. And I mean, we already confirmed multiple times that Rino is stupid enough to try come running to Squalls side for no apparent reason but shippiness, but the other are not stupid enough to let her.

The problem here is that the game had to handle the situation in case you do not bring her along and they couldn't come up with anything better than her just randomly finding us in this room before the fight with Edea.

I can kind of understand him. He just couldn't fight his own wife. But he still should have done this whole thing a bit differently.

In the fight against the Galbadia Garden, when Squall thought Rinoa was lost, he was merely thinking a sad "Rinoa..." and now all of a sudden she is all he can think about, even tho when he previously mentioned everyone trying to get them together he did not sound that enthusiastic or interested at all. And I do get that some people only know what they had or could have had after they lost it and Squall certainly is the type for it. But the whole buildup for this ship until now was really, really bad to begin with.

They did? When? Just a short while ago in Fishermans Horizont you just had another argument.

I forgot that I still have to deal with Lagunas part of the story...

This scene is only in here to see Laguna with a Gunblade because apparently its important to see Laguna using the same weapon his son does ^^'

It is a bit more complicated than that. But I understand why Ellone feels like its her fault.

We are traveling into the unknown with a comatose friend and a witch that could be controlled by some evil being at any given time... what exactly makes you feel like this is a picnic?

[joifee]

Joiiiii go to sleeepp

You can (probably) draw in the morning!!!!! Your health is important!!

I'm not sure whether I am more alarmed that you consistently go to bed at 2 am, or that you stayed up til 4 am. I thought my 12 am occasionally 1 am was bad!!

But seriously, go to sleep. If you want, I can even give you advice on attempting to make your sleep schedule marginally better?

i appreciate the concern. I agree i should go to bed earlier. but its not like i have stuff to do in the mornings so i can sleep till 8am or 9am without worry. So its not like i get less sleep - i get my 6-7 hours of sleep. i actually have a good inner clock so shifting my bedtime wouldnt be really much work. recently i just been procrastinating sleep because laying down gets me into a coughing fit, my chronic bronchitis is not very kindly to me since i had the flu in late january and in the start of may. waking up is even worse, so you could say i am dreading going to bed atm a bit - it got better tho

but then seeing people actually being concerned maybe i should try to get to bed a hour earlier; i hate to worry. But then i want to try to at least finish one page

[ooglywooglies]

bruh so im sick rn with i think bronchitis, i get it all the time but i dont think its technically chronic

and im looking up the actual causes bc usually they say its smoking and i dont smoke at all but my parents smoked like basically constantly when i was growing up, in places i was always in and my mom 100% smoked when she was pregnant with me

i have asthma and weve always been like yeah its probably bc of that but i was like youd think id have it worse considering all that what else does smoking during pregnancy even cause and bruh it makes you FAT??

[caz-is-gay]

so. currently actually sobbing bc i made the horrible decision to look through techno’s channel. i saw the gravity mod vid he posted after the announcement that he had cancer. i remember being so happy. sbi content! god. i still haven’t watched the video. yknow the one. a year ago i tried to watch squids video on part of the potato war. i didnt get 3 mins in b4 i heard his voice (he was celebrating!! he was happy!) and started crying. maybe in a decade ill be able to watch it and smile. and ill be able to watch the new one, and old ones and laugh like i used to. i looked through the community posts. he really loved birds, didnt he? i feel so bad for his dad.

june 2022. worst month of my life i think. everything happened at once. on june 1st lizzy was over. i was so desperately in love with her. still in denial about the inevitable friend zone. we went to zydecos grad party! she left halfway through to call her ex. they got back together. the facade was broken. obviously she didn’t like me back and anything romantic with her is a pipe dream. (i mean who would ever love to be attracted to an ugly fat pig like me?) so lizzy is over. im trying to ignore the heartbreak. then i hear the news. techno died. my sister hears it from a friend and tells me. the ppl we have over dont get it. they dont get why it hits me so hard, and god i dont want to explain it. so i pretend im fine. keep hosting, keep being nice. every second is agony! i cry myself to sleep. that had stopped a few months ago. i wasnt suicidal anymore but god. 2 weeks later im starting to back to *normal* levels of summer break depression. my dad finds out. he loved techno. im gone again. my mom fonds out, she doesn’t know who he is., doesn’t know the other 3 ppl at the table have already been grieving. shes lost so many to cancer. “did you hear about that minecraft youtuber who died of cancer? he was only 23, its so sad” i didnt know what to say. “yes i watched him everyday for 4 years his videos were the only thing that could get me to sleep when i started having suicidal thoughts if not for him i wouldn’t be here and now he dead.” yeah.

i still didn’t get over lizzy for months. fantasizing about a life with her was my escape. it was unrealistic and i couldn’t think about her like that anymore. then my dad brought covid home from work. june 23rd, my mom almost dies. thats the worst day of my life. it was mcc day. i was watching it on my tv, because my dad went to see his parents and mom was sick. she had been in bed for days. she got sick a lot. she had bronchitis for 10 years at this point. i was taking care of her. she was obviously delirious. asking me to pour water on her because she was so hot. i didnt know what to do. i waited for so long. i couldn’t deal with this right now i needed to de stress not have more. it got too much, i called my dad and he said she must have high blood sugar. fuck. i looked at her insulin log, nothing written for 2 days. fuck fuck fuck. he told me, if she cant draw her own blood for a reading, call 911. so we did. she could have died. if i waited any longer she could have passed out and stopped breathing. she went to the hospital. medically induced coma, intubated. she had told us many times shed rather die than be on a ventilator. none of us mentioned it. she was in a coma for 2 weeks. woke up, had to be in vent for longer. she was finally extubated. she couldn’t talk but she managed to be sarcastic still. i had to hold back tears. best day of my life.

that month changed the course of my life forever. my disability was most likely caused by the mild covid infection i got b4 my mom got sick. my mom doesn’t have a fungal lung infection anymore. my parents are sleeping in the same room again, and going to therapy. my mom has a cgm and a cpap and is on top of her health.

i cant stand the sounds of artificial breathing after sitting next to her for so long. im more afraid of my future than ever. im still getting over my best friend (fuck being demiromantic man) and i am still crying over technoblade.

[coolcoelacanth]

i wrote a long diary entry basically about my cat findings and financial life so i will put under the read more if you are interested in the tea LOL

update on my cat again: luckily the gabapentin made her sedated enough so they could take the chest x-rays w/out having to fully sedate her. bad but expected news, she has patchy lung infiltrates in both lungs, and her bronchioles were opaque. this means there is definitely irritation/inflammation in her lungs. i was hoping it would just be a pulmonary issue, since the vet said her heart murmur sounded quieter while she was on the gabapentin (possibly indicating a stress murmur), but we did a proBNP test and the results were abnormal :/. it didn't say low-high which is kind of annoying (esp considering how much i'm paying...), but that means i have to do the echocardiogram now to finally see if there is something wrong w/ her heart/what it is. if there is something wrong w/ her heart, the coughing and the lung x-ray could indicate pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs due to all the blood in the left ventricle not being expelled to the body, causing regurgitation into the lungs).

i am praying that the echo is normal and she simply has like bronchitis from allergies, or asthma or something with a better prognosis than a heart condition. i'm also going to be 1.2k in the hole after all this testing, but i'm already in a massive amount of debt from going to pharmacy school so i figured why the fuck not who cares lmao just tack it on. plus it's better to figure it out now than to wait until she's in terrible condition and on her deathbed. and i will have some sort of salary after this final year of pharmacy school, so i don't have to make it too much longer. (either a salary from doing a residency or if i'm desperate, signing onto walgreens or some shit and hating my life). but i also have to pay a ridiculous amount of money to even take the naplex (pharmacy board exam basically), and i have to pay to take the MPJE (NYS law exam for pharmacists). i'm pretty sure the total will be like $700, and. that's if i pass the first time....and my tuition is crazy high, and the last year i'm literally not even in the classroom bc we just do straight rotations onsite for the last year WHICH WE ARE NOT PAID FOR.

i'm tired of getting boned economically by my stupid ass school. i'm not so upset about the vet bills tbh, for some reason i literally don't care. i have enough savings (although most of them are from my graduate plus loan to pay form my rent LOL RIP) and i can always TAKE OUT ANOTHER LOAN if i need more money for rent or something, so i at least i'm fortunate enough to have that option. i am just so ready to be free from all this bullshit and have an actual goddamn income. i'm going to treat mirabel anyway, but now i'm worried how much treatment is going to cost, i only had my mind on the tests we had to do. and i really really really hope it's something curable/manageable and NOT a congenital heart disease. or if it is heart disease, it's not severe. i did have hope from the chest x-ray, b/c the vet said that her heart did not appear abnormally large or shaped, and i read that a positive proBNP test can also indicate other stressors like bronchitis so it's not a guarantee that it's her heart.

also it's literally just my luck that i pick out the congenitally sick cat from the shelter. i love her and she's my bff at this point, but it's like yeah that's about right for my track record. they didn't even mention a heart murmur on her vet notes from the shelter, which i'm confused about. did they just not write it down, or did they straight up not hear anything? b/c the vet said it was grade 3/4 which means its pretty goddamn loud. i'm like, did i get lowkey scammed by the shelter? i mean i love mirabel, but idk seems a little shady to me. but i am at least glad that i chose a good paying career so this is all (hopefully) a temporary issue, which a lot of people do not have that saving grace.

sorry i literally just wrote like a diary entry i did not plan on writing this much LMAO. if you actually read this, bless you. if you didn't, that's okay i'm fine w this being my echo chamber.

[ohifonlyx33]

Im just cranky and need to rant because of dryer exhaust air and 2 weeks of bronchitis and bad weather and my dad being insufferable.

My dad's such an anxious person that he worries the pipes will burst every time it's even slightly snowy. Okay so open the cabinet doors, right? No. He can't be normal about his concerns. Instead he hangs bright lamps by the pipes in the basement and leaves them on all night... even though I sleep down there (And often have to wake up at 6 am which makes it hard for me to sleep).

Even though the basement has 2 space heaters and a Kerosene heater at my disposal... and I even have a heating pad if I want it... it's never cold down there. But at least once every 2 weeks he thinks the furnace is going to give out and idk we'll all die of frostbite or something (even in above freezing weather). Like if it really did get bad, couldn't we just... drive to a hotel for the night or call some friends or...?)

I have also mentioned being hot at night multiple times and he persists in asking me if it's cold in the basement. I AM waking up SWEATING. ALL WINTER LONG.

Like, I'm used to his anxious paranoia, as much as I HATE listening to it. That's not even why I'm irritated right now.

No it's just that he's such a logical guy that his new freaking genius idea this winter is to let the dryer exhaust funnel INTO the basement...okay whatever... weird. Don't love it... but ok?

but THEN he put my ONE wet load of laundry in the dryer but split it into TWO and ran them back to back for a few hours (I did not ask him to dry them at all and prefer he would not TOUCH my stuff at all and have always asked people not to do my laundry for me as it's personal for me). Still. I am used to being ignored and hijacked if my laundry sits in the washer for more than an hour it is at risk of getting moved. So maybe that's on me...

But the reason I'm upset is that HE DOES THIS RIGHT BEFORE BED SO NOW I HAVE TO BREATHE IN DRYER SHEETS AND HOT LINT SMELLS..... and IM Suffering. It's like a laundromat in here.. which MIGHT be tolerable if I wasn't trying to get over 2 weeks of bronchitis that has now reached a stage of it being hard to get a deep, satisfying breath. All this and the air is SO DRY. And laying down and breathing through my nose now actually burns a little from the smells.

For YEARS when I was a child, he thought the kitty litter causing me to be asthmatic if I so much as cleared my throat too many times at supper... this is the same man who thought my current bronchitis might be from some imaginary mold he just decided was in our car vents instead of a secondary infection after the tooth infection I was on antibiotics for 3-4 weeks ago or the multiple gross (but cute) children that sneeze and cough on me all day at work...

But somehow he never thought exhaust fumes and dust might be IRRITATING to my lungs while I'm literally on antibiotics for bronchitis?

He also has to describe what snow is and how it works like I've never seen it, every time it might snow on a day that I work.. he has to tell me again how it makes roads unsafe to drive on as if I'd never driven on it before (I'm not a teenager). As if he couldn't just say "drive safe" (as if I'm purposefully reckless) and suggest I take a safer route (as if I didn't already know that)... he has to basically infer that I am incapable of having any sound judgement in these matters and forcefully dictate how slow I am to go and exactly which road to take and. And. AND. aNDANDaaaaND.... he's done that to my mom too. For years. Every time the weatherman says it might snow even a little. He cries wolf for every snowflake. To the point when I am surprised if we even GET snow at all.

Please can I take this as a personal attack? Its psychological warfare...

His worry is not even a valid expression of love at this level. It's just twisted.

[taffyforever]

DUNCIE CHECK

hellooooooo my silly little crustaceans :3 its the TAFFYUPDATE !!! okay so. remember when i said i was sick in my last post. it actually turned out to be BRONCHITIS !!!!!! but by now i've finished my antibiotics and im just getting the last bit of gunk out of my lungies. make sure you wash your hands and maybe even mask up this summer !!!!! a bunch of my friends are getting sick too there's a lot going around rn.

in other news, in exactly one week i will be somewhere i've wanted to be for a long time. this is the most exciting thing for me and because of it, life is very very good. i dont want to spoil anything just yet because i will probably be very irritating on twitter about it LOL. let's just say im very very excited. im v curious how everyone will react when the news is actually public.

as per my redebut, she's chugging along as always. the bronchitis stole a productive week from me but i fight on regardless. art is so fun until it isnt orz

ok !!! i'll see you all in a week for the next TAFFYUPDATE !!! which again, will probably be me being irritating on twitter. i love not being on that website every moment of my life. i am so out of the loop and its awesome. wtf is even happening lol

i miss yall !!!!!! take care of yourself and STAY HEALTHY !!!!!!!!!!

[rdnw]

i got bronchitis right after my mini vacation and it’s been exactly 7 days since i first went to see a doctor and your girl is still coughing and not ok.. and i got my period today and my cramps are usually bad on the first day, but especially terrible since i forgot painkillers this morning. i thought i was gonna throw up or pass out at work. also i haven’t seen any friends in over a week because ive been sick and i miss talking to ppl 😭 i can’t believe i haven’t mentioned that i lost my voice for like 3 days during all of this. me and my friend had such a packed February to plan but getting this sick has been such a hard thing to deal with living alone. and i have to make myself soup and clean up after my self 😭 i can’t live like this. im a super clean person so getting sick right after my trip where i had tons of laundry to do and felt so drained made for a very messy apartment. i have no energy, it’s like ive been playing catch up all week. i need to up my immune system because i didn’t get sick for like a year and a half until i moved and suddenly ive been catching something every month, even though i wear a mask everywhere and i sanitize after everything i touch. all this to say i haven’t been sick like this in about 2 years and your girl is not fairing very well. pray for me im exhausted, on the bright side i think ive made it over the hard part and ive made steps to implement more fruits and veggies into my diet because … ive been neglecting making that a priority lately… i probably should get some vitamin c and probiotics to be safe.

and that’s what u missed on —

omg ive been living abroad for almost 5 months now!! its actually crazy to think about!! sometimes i feel so brand new and whole from this experience and other times i feel so disconnected from my life and fractured lol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . i can’t believe my parents did this and couldn’t go back home. it’s heartbreaking to think that they had to uproot their life not even by choice but for survival and have never been home since. it’s so hard leaving family and moving away and that’s with the belief i’ll see everyone again soon 🥲. i don’t think i truly could’ve understood the pain and sacrifice my parents have made and are making by not living in their home country. i don’t think any amount of time away from home could change where home is, at least to me, right now.

[doebt]

I kind of decided earlier i need to go to this psychiatric clinic and get on zoloft or prozac or whatever before i get a job the depression induced fatigue is absolutely debilitating i cant imagine standing up for 8hours straight...im nearly certain its depression and not like. a disease

[petrichorpetals]

Bless my professor. I just straight up didn't turn in one of my ten papers that was due as a final because I made myself stay up three days straight after working full time to try and finish it only for my boyfriend to accidentally delete everything that was on his desktop including that paper that I was still working on. (Thankfully I already turned in the two I was working on before that.) I never sent him an email or anything, just accepting my zero, but he just sent me an email unprompted saying hey I know grades are supposed to be in but I'll still take your work and submit a grade change form if you turn it in this week due to your circumstances.

[ask-a-vetblr]

hey! my parents cat was just tentatively diagnosed with asthma. they put him on prednisone to treat it... he got rapidly worse, its been a week and hes hiding and barely eats. the vet said that he probably had a mild respiratory infection beforehand and that the meds exacerbated it. hes on antibiotics and weaning off the prednisone now, fingers crossed he makes it.

my question is: i know with things like dental care you usually get antibiotics beforehand to stop accidental infections from setting in like this, why isnt that more common when going on immunosuppressants? is there a reason why they dont prescribe a round before heavy treatment to prevent whats happening to my kitty? thanks ahead of time! im a bit shaken up by the whole thing and just want to understand a bit better.

gettingvetted here.

Asthma in cats is very common, as are viral upper respiratory infections, especially herpes. The vast majority of viral upper respiratory infections are self-limiting, meaning they come and go on their own, similar to a cold. They don't typically cause changes in lung x-rays or sounds, because again, they are upper respiratory focused (nose/throat). Meanwhile, asthma happens on the level of the lungs. There can certainly be infectious bronchitis cases due to bacteria or viruses that causes asthma symptoms, but 99% of the time asthma symptoms are due to allergic bronchitis (which is the technical term for asthma) which causes thickening and inflammation of the airways on radiographs and result in a wheezing or crackling noise. Thus, in most cases, radiographs and a good stethoscope are all that are necessary to differentiate asthma from an upper respiratory infection. Unless you performed a nasal swab and/or a tracheal swab, which is invasive, difficult, and very expensive, you would never be 100% sure of the origin of airway inflammation. This is not a test we tend to reach for unless we have unsuccessfully treated asthma and/or upper respiratory infections and are attempting to find a more targeted therapy. If it looks and sounds like a run-of-the-mill asthma case, and there is no pneumonia present, there is no need for antibiotics alongside the steroids. Even if it looks and sounds like a run-of-the-mill upper respiratory infection, there is still usually no need for antibiotics, because they will not shorten the course or even relieve the symptoms of a viral disease process and would be considered poor stewardship of antibiotics. We typically only prescribe antibiotics for upper respiratory infections if the animal is at risk for pneumonia and we are trying to prevent that, for example very young kittens, cats with FIV, etc., or in cases where we know for a fact that the infection is due to mycoplasma bacteria, which we would find out via one of those nasal swab tests. In these cases, antibiotics still won't help shorten the course or relieve symptoms; they are simply to prevent pneumonia (or anemia, in the case of mycoplasma).

All of this is to say that your vet was justified in using a steroid to treat asthma, and an underlying condition may have been exacerbated by it. It is very common for cats with URI's to hide and not want to eat. It is also pretty common for cats to get URI's after a stressful scenario such as having an asthma flare and/or going to the vet. They are typically not life threatening unless the cat has one of the immune conditions discussed above. I hope your kitty is feeling better - it’s been a few days since this ask was submitted!

P.S. It's actually falling out of favor to use antibiotics with dental care unless the teeth were/are so severely infected that the jaw is considered to be at risk of fracture from the infection or if there is a noticeable tooth root abscess. A routine dental cleaning and even most extractions do not warrant antibiotics.

[clatterbane]

As mentioned in another post the other day, I've pretty much been down with some weird virusy bullshit for a little while now.

Which, in spite of one negative rapid antigen test so far? Seems pretty likely to have been a(nother) round with the ongoing plague. Most likely picked up whatever crud on the last trip to the university medical center. Though I did start feeling off within a day or two afterward, which seems pretty quick if I did catch it there.

Mr. C also felt under the weather for a couple days after that, with some sudden digestive symptoms mostly one night. Which I thankfully didn't get. But, with the timing he was also figuring that these were likely connected anyway.

Back to this post, from the end of January:

But yeah, BA.2 has very specifically been running through Denmark. Northern Europe in general, but with particularly high rates there. Somehow I doubt that's been been heeding official borders and staying on the other side of the bridge, when we are basically in Greater Copenhagen here.

One decent summary, btw:

Also, from Yale?

Early reports from South Africa indicated that most cases were mild—and that symptoms for this variant seemed to be different. “The reports show that patients in South Africa—many of whom were young—have had severe fatigue, but no loss of taste or smell,” says Lauren Ferrante, MD, a Yale Medicine pulmonologist.

Whatever this shit is, it didn't actually hit my respiratory system to even "normal" cold levels. (Just like that previous suspected-Omicron episode which helped complicate getting moved into this place.) I have mostly been getting a runny nose and a little congestion, and have needed to pull out the rescue inhaler a couple of times--for the first time in ages. Though, it is also prime tree pollen season, which is infamous for fucking with my breathing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Haven't really been seeing any maples locally, at least.

But, that has at least been a big relief, with the truly unpleasant history of frequent bouts of ridiculously unrecognized/misdiagnosed asthma "asthmatic bronchitis" from even the usual run of colds. *knock wood*

No, way more trouble (again) with nasty headaches, sore throat, and feeling feverish. With side orders of gross night sweats, dizziness, and flu-level body aches and muscle spasms which have also been sending some of the nerve pain into overdrive. 😬 All of which does kinda fit the reported BA.2 pattern, yeah.

Most of that has been more on a "meh, whatever, I've seen a lot worse" level, and I do seem to be coming out from under the worst of that garbage.

(Including my blood sugar going screwy and wanting to run high, as is common with any sort of illness. That also seems to be behaving better, and thankfully it never got that OTT with this crap. For that matter, viruses often help trigger autoimmune diabetes, to begin with--and this pandemic is looking particularly bad for that.)

The most concerning part, though? The damned fatigue and weakness/shakiness. 😵 To the point that I can't help but be glad that I am using a wheelchair now, and not trying to walk around between the rubbery whole body effect and lightheadedness. I'm just sitting here vaguely sweaty and shaky, and feeling like that is taking some serious effort right now. Will probably go lie down after I manage to get some food in, and probably fall asleep again whether I want to or not.

I mean, over the years I have dealt with a fair few viruses. And this shit has been dragging me out worse than any but a couple of them that I recall. So far, it's been giving that bout with suspected mononucleosis a run for its money. 😵

Which, again, would be more "meh, this sucks but whatever, guess my body just really needs to sleep this crap off"--if it didn't seem to be dragging on at such a level for longer than expected with something like this. The whole thing has been feeling just plain weird, in a rather worrying way.

I mean, I have been glad at the further illustration of how unusual the sick-fatigue is these days, now that the diabetes is finally being treated properly. It's been so good, not feeling like I've got the damned flu all the time with energy levels/stamina.

But, I really don't want to go back there! If not worse in some ways, which it kinda is right now. The muscle spasm/nerve pain screwiness also seems to want to hang around and keep it company.

It is early days yet, but I still cannot help but get more than a little concerned. NOBODY wants strange post-viral bullshit. But, I was just getting used to feeling much healthier again, in spite of some ongoing medical complications.

We'll just have to see, of course. But, it's honestly hard not to worry.

Not fishing for sympathy here, btw! It is what it is. But, that's why I have barely been around for a while. And I thought I should share the symptom info.