sonic-adventure-3 · 2 years ago
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msrble blast
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moskaisley · 5 years ago
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migraine pt. 2 | acute
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rating: mature
word count: 4k
warnings: no smut in this part but!! implied abuse and mentions of trafficking!! cursing and violence as well
a/n: HI JUST A NOTE SAYING FUCK HUMAN TRAFFICKING >:(  it's a super huge problem in my city and i rly wanted to make the reader a protag who fights against it. in this part i wanted to explore more of mando and reader working together on a mission. not a lot of feelings but more so their dynamic as a team.
summary:
“...under my protection.”
When a bounty turns into a rescue mission. 
parts 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6
ao3 link / masterlist
“So, tell me about this big quarry again?”
Your exit ramp was down, and Mando stood at the bottom, watching you gather materials from your ship to put in a satchel. He insisted on taking the Razor Crest for this mission, even if The Slipstream was newer and a bit more reliable. You supposed you could let the ship rest and refuel for a few days while you were away.
“His name is Khan Horne from Canto Bight; he’s wanted for running multiple sex trafficking rings throughout the galaxy,” he paused for a second, watching you struggle to grab something from a high shelf.
“I thought you said -” You grunted as you stood on the tips of your toes, “this job was Inner Rim.”
You almost jumped out of your skin when you felt a hand on your shoulder; the Mandalorian was suddenly behind you. Being the gentleman that he was, his free hand reached past your face to pick up the blaster from the shelf up above. It was annoying how that simple action warmed your cheeks.
“It is. Bounty hunters are the New Republic’s last-ditch chance at catching him. That’s why he has such a high reward,” Mando twisted it in his hands, “You still have this?”
You swallowed thickly, “Never found a reason to throw it out.”
The blaster was small and old, but it still held a charge. Mando gave it to you after you found yourself defenseless when your blades found themselves lodged in a wall in the middle of combat. Little did he know, you couldn’t hit anything unless it was less than four paces in front of you. A lot of your free time after that was filled with target practice and drills. You remember your stomach lurching whenever he put his hands on you to change your stance. He had a habit of leaning in close with his hand on the small of your back, the other pointing towards an old Stormtrooper helmet perched on a wall.
Nowadays, you don’t shoot much, but you still took it on every mission just in case.
He handed it back to you, handle first,  “You still a terrible shot?”
You took it and tucked it in your ratty side holster,  “I’m better than you think, old man.”
A part of you hated how easy it was to talk to him after all these years. When you were with him now, it felt futile to stay angry at someone you shared such a deep connection with at some point in your life. But you haven’t forgotten those first days in the Slipstream, makeshift curtains out of your clothes, crying your weight in tears and dealing with one of the worst migraines of your life. You remember heaving bile in the shipyard with how disoriented you were.
Maybe one day, you’ll tell Mando everything you went through after his disappearance. You knew it could crush him; he’d spill out apologies until you were drowning in them. But then again, maybe not. He did leave you stranded on a planet all alone after fooling you into thinking you two would stick together as a team, maybe even more. You couldn’t really tell what he was feeling behind his beskar helmet. He was obviously being soft on you now, but you honestly think it’s because he’s trying to save face for what he’s done to wrong you.
It was all very headache inducing. That was the last thing you needed right now.
When you closed up the Slipstream and boarded the Razor Crest, you expected everything to be pretty much the same. And it was, save for the tiny wrinkly baby cooing in a little floating pod.
“Um, congratulations?” You were only slightly panicking. Who the hell did he have a baby with?
“It’s not mine,” he said, quick to explain, “biologically. That is.”
“Oh.”
“He’s... in my care until I find his people.”
You walk up to him, and raise your hands up to his pod, “May I?”
Mando nodded; at his consent, you gingerly nuzzled his head with your fingers. He gurgled in delight, his big eyes squinting with happiness. He was achingly adorable.
“Hello there,” you introduce yourself, oh so gently, “You must be Mando’s new partner. You must be sick of him already, huh?”
You shoot a pointed smirk at the Mandalorian, and he shakes his head, amused.
Kids were never really something on your radar. They weren’t right for the way you lived. However, every so often (when you’re especially exhausted from bounty hunting), you let yourself dream about a day when you’d eventually settle down in a cottage, one with lots of windows, and on the cliff near an ocean. You would maybe be married, with one or two children to bring up and raise as your own. The windows would be open to let in the ocean air, curtains delicately drifting in the wind, and you would be sipping on a cup of tea with your family softly sleeping around you. Your daydreams were so domestic because you envied people who had such peace; no blaster smoke or iron blood in your mouth. Just a sleepy home with laughing children, sea breeze and sunshine. In another time, you’d imagined Mando there, no helmet or beskar armor. Just him and you and home.
You don’t think about that cottage much anymore.
Pulling yourself out of your thoughts, you turned away from the child to Mando, who was already settling into the pilot’s chair, setting coordinates.
“Jaemai?” You asked, brows furrowed.
“The planet is a big hub for travelers in-transit, especially between Rims,” The Mandalorian
explains, “It’s basically a glorified airport; busy enough to transport people without a trace.”
You lifted the tracking fob off the console, turning it around in your hands, “Is that where he was last spotted?”
“Yes, but with how evasive he is, we’d be lucky to catch him there at all.”
You hum in agreement and take a seat in the co-pilot chair, “We need a plan. With an operation as big as his, he probably has men hired to protect him at all times.”
It was like no time had passed between you two. Discussing strategy was always easy, probably because there weren’t any feelings involved: just a bounty. Much to Mando’s dismay, the two of you decided that his presence in any of the terminals would be highly suspect. It was easier to have you undercover as a young, lonely traveler. Mando would have the high ground in the air traffic control tower, scanning the area just in case Khan takes off.
You looked for clothes that were the least ragged and dirty; many of the people who traveled through Jaemai were dignitaries, senators and the like. (Basically, not dusty bounty hunters like you.) The lack of a utility belt and combat jacket left you struggling to fit any weapons on your person. You were dressed as a doctor and you were able to tuck your blaster so that it would be hidden by your flowing lab coat, but you had to sacrifice your dual blades for small throwing knives under your sleeves. The blades needed to be put elsewhere, which wasn’t ideal in an emergency, but you felt more comfortable having them at all.
“Leave your commlink on the whole time,” Mando advised as he pushed the tracking fob into your hands, “If anything goes south, come back to the Razor Crest immediately and we’ll figure something else out.”
You nodded, sticking the tracking fob in the inner pocket of your lab coat. You took the leather satchel that carried your weapons, and walked down the exit ramp onto the tarmac.
“See you on the other side, Mando,” you say to him
“Y/N,” he called, “Be safe.”
You took a deep breath and kept walking through the gates of the shipyard to catch a shuttle for the departure terminal. Jaemai’s transit system was enormous; it crossed stretches and stretches of land, and you hoped that you wouldn’t need to scour each one to find a single man. The first terminal was reserved for transit in between the Inner Rim and Core worlds; you figured that if Khan had been running circles under the nose of the New Republic, it would be the best place to start.
Three hours later and you haven’t even covered half the terminal. It’s so huge that finding a single man here would take an entire day. He’s definitely here though; the tracking fob took you somewhat closer to the right direction, but he was still able to blend in amongst the crowd. Nausea and pain in your temples were starting to settle in; being in such a loud and cramped space was an easy trigger for a migraine. You scrambled to the nearest refresher, slipping into one of the stalls and shutting the door behind you. Reaching into your satchel, you pulled out the bottle of pain pills and a flask of water.
“Y/N, come in,” Mando’s voice through your commlink startled you into dropping your pills onto the ground, “Is everything okay?”
You groaned, “Yes, I’m fine. Just frustrated. This guy could be anywhere, Mando. I think we need to cut our losses and wait for him to move.”
You heard him sigh, “It would take a few days to refuel depending on where he ends up next. We need to catch him here while we can.”
You rubbed your temples with your fingers; he was right. You needed to pull it together or else you’d probably never find Khan at all. You bend over to pick up the pills on the floor but you freeze at the sound of a sniffle. Is someone crying? Pushing open the door to your stall, you locate the sobs of a girl two doors over.
“Knock on the door.  She’ll tell you what you’re looking for.”
So you knock, “Um, hello?”
Mando is questioning you from the other line, but you ignore him. The door to the stall is unlocked, and you push further. You see a Twi’lek girl frozen and curled up in the corner next to the toilet. Tears were running down her face, and a nasty welt was forming at the corner of her eye. Your heart ached; she couldn’t have been older than 19.
She tensed in her spot, and she looked ready to dash out the door, but you held your hands out in front of you to ease her fear.
“Hey hey, it’s okay. I won’t hurt you, I promise,” you said gently. Mando went silent over the line choosing instead to listen intently.
She stayed still, but refused to speak. Instead, she pushed herself further against the wall behind her. You set your bag down on the floor carefully, and then you took a seat a few paces in front of her.
“My name is Y/N,” you introduced, “What’s yours?”
She still said nothing, sniffling and shifting uncomfortably in the corner.
You tried again, “I’m a doctor. I can help you with your eye. It looks like it hurts a lot.”
You reach into your satchel and pull out your medkit, careful to conceal your blades; you don’t want to scare the poor girl. From the kit, you take out a bacta wipe and hold it out in front of her.
“May I?” you prompt calmly, waiting for her to come to you. And she did. She unfurls from her corner, and slowly crawls towards you. You smile as you gently take her face in your hand, and wipe along the bruised area. The area starts to heal already, and her labored breathing has returned to a normal pace.
She’s looking down at her knees as she whispers, “Aayn’vida”
“That’s a lovely name,” you say. You reach into your bag again, pulling the flask of water and handing it over to her, “Here, drink some water.”
“Thank you,” She croaks as she unscrews the cap and chugs it down.
“Aayn’vida,” you sit up a little straighter, “ Do you mind telling me you did this to you?”
She freezes mid sip and starts to shut down again. Your chest constricts at how afraid she is. “I fell, that's it.”
“You can tell me if you need help. I’m here to help you-”
She shifts again, looking around and suddenly on high alert, “What is that beeping?”
You’re caught off guard, “What?”
“Your jacket. It’s beeping. Is that a tracking fob? Are you here to take me too?”
Your heart rate starts to pick up. If the fob is beeping, that means Khan is close. You scramble for a response that won’t scare Aayn’vida away because it’s abundantly clear to you that she’s involved with this whole situation.
“No! No, it’s just a pager,” you reassure her, “It’s just telling me I’m going to depart in an hour, but I won’t leave you unless you’re okay.”
She doesn’t seem convinced. You try to wrack your brain again to save face, but then a loud banging comes from the door. Your tracking fob is beeping even louder now. Aayn’vida seems to react automatically to the loud knocking at the door, springing upwards. “I’m sorry, ma’am but I need to leave,” she quickly stammers, pushing through the stall and striding towards the door.
“Wait!” You grab her arm, “Aayn’vida, I can protect you. You just need to tell me what’s going on.”
She’s on the verge of tears again. She whimpers “You can’t; he’ll kill you and then he’ll kill me too. He’s evil and-”
You grip her shoulders and steady her as another angry stream of knocks come again. “Who is ‘he’? What is his name?”
“Khan. Khan Horne."
--
Mando’s voice suddenly cut through your commlink, “I’m coming over. Keep the girl safe.”
“Okay. Be careful. I’ll meet you at the Razor Crest”
She looked at you, eyebrows furrowed. The knocks came again, and they were growing increasingly louder and heavier. It only panicked Aayn’vida more.  You look her in the eyes again, and hold her shoulders tighter.
“Aayn’vida, I’m going to need you to pay close attention to me, do you understand?” You speak to her firmly and quickly,  “Stay behind me and under any circumstances do not leave my side.”
She nods, and watches intently as you secure the satchel to your person and pull the tracking fob from your coat. The beeping is echoing off the walls of the bathroom; it’s deafening.
“He’s right outside the door.”
Your head pounds at every knock at the door, but for Aayn’vida’s sake, you keep up your strength.
You hold her hand as you open the door, and you’re met face to face with Khan Horne, an incredibly well kept man dressed in an expensive suit. He scowls at the sight of Aayn’vida cowering behind you.
“What is the meaning of this?” His voice is grating. It feels like knives against your skin, “Who are you? What are you doing with my daughter?”
You bore daggers into his bronze brazen eyes, “I’m afraid that’s none of your concern, sir.”
“This is preposterous!” he snarled, “Hand her over immediately or I’ll make you pay, sweetheart.”
He slams his hands against the door frame in an attempt to intimidate you, moving in closer to gain the upper hand. You’re quicker than him though; in an instant, you have a small knife to his throat, digging it ever-so slightly deeper.
“Unfortunately, for you Mr. Horne, Aayn’vida is now under my protection. ”
“You bitch, ” He hisses at you, blood trickling at the fresh wound in his neck.
You push forward out of the bathroom and edge the girl into the hallway, keeping your blade trained at Khan until the two of you can slip out into the terminal crowd. You grip her hand and begin rushing towards the nearest exit. As the two of you push through the droves of travelers, you immediately notice men moving quicker towards you.
“Mando?” You call, pressing the link closer to your ear, “His men, they’re everywhere.”
You hear him grunt on the other line, “They’re out here too. Don’t try and fight them, just get outta there.”
Khan’s men were flanking all around you, inching in closer and you’re trying not to panic. Your brain is pounding and yelling at you to find a solution. You can’t take all of them by yourself. If you tried, Aayn’vida would end up taken again, Khan would disappear and your body would be dumped on a tarmac.
“Think, think, think.”
And then you see it along the far wall, a fire alarm. You take the knife you used against Khan in your dominant hand
“Maker, give me something.”
You throw, and it lands perfectly, shattering through the glass and straight to the switch. Water and cooling steam rains from the ceiling, as if it were falling from the heavens. The terminal spirals into chaos with civilians yelling and scrambling to get to evacuate. Khan’s men are thrown for a loop. Your grip on Aayn’vida’s hand tightens, and you sprint towards the exit.
“Mando!” You plead through the comm link, “Get to the ship! We need to go!”
“Y/N! H-h-ell-?” Your heart plummets to your stomach when the line fizzles dead. In your stress, you scream a curse and rip the earpiece off and toss it to the ground. Khan and his men are still in tow and you need to keep going, Mandalorian with you or otherwise.
“Sorry! I need this,” you push an unsuspecting droid off a speeder, and take it for yourself, heaving Aayn’vida behind you, “Hold on!”
You take off at full speed and before you know it, you’re both running through the shipyard.
You rush up to the bay door of the Razor Crest, banging loudly and yelling for Mando to open up. Your chest stomach lurches when no one answers.
“I believe you have something of mine, doctor. ”
You whip around, pushing Aayn’vida behind you against the ship and arming yourself with another throwing knife. Khan has two of his men flanking him, both with blasters trained on you and the girl. Your head was searing with pain.
“Drop it, sweetheart,” his skeevy voice chided, “You’re clearly outnumbered three to one.”
You smirked, “I like those odds.”
“Hey, that’s his line.”
Khan Horne’s face soured at your indifference, “You’re partner isn’t here, bounty hunter! My men are taking the Mandalorian down as we speak.”
“You clearly underestimated him then,” you taunt, stalling for time, “He’s the best in the parsec, didn’t you know?”
He’s getting impatient, you can tell. Khan raises his hand and his men take aim.
“Wait!” You hold your hands up, “If you can triple the bounty on your head, I’ll let her go and you won’t hear from me again.”
Aayn’vida rustles nervously behind you. Khan stops his men and takes a second to think over your offer. He narrows his eyes at you in apprehension, “What is keeping me from killing you and taking her myself?”
“The New Republic will always send hunters your way. I can clear your name in the Guild with Greef Karga and guarantee your immunity,” You try to keep your voice from shaking. You know you couldn’t actually clear his name, but he didn’t know that, “Just give me the credits and say the words.”
The thirty seconds he takes to think your offer over feel like an eternity.
And then, by some miracle, he says, “Very well then. Cuff her for me, will you?”
He waves off his men and they lower their aim.
You turn around and guilt overwhelms you when you see the fear and shock in Aayn’vida’s eyes. You’re terrifying her. As you open your satchel to reach for the cuffs, you briefly show her the hilts of your weapons. You give her a knowing look and hope she understands.
“Trust me.”
You slip both hilts up into one your sleeves, and hold them in a way where they wouldn’t be seen by Khan and his men. You then put the cuffs around Aayn’vida’s wrists, and turn around striding forward, gently pulling the girl by her restraints. Khan has already put the credits in a box, and he’s stupid enough to hand it off to you first.
You take the box and deck him in the face as you push Aayn’vida back towards the Razor Crest. You command her to take cover as you finally unsheathe your dual shock blades from their retractable sheath. His men are quick to take aim, but you’re quicker. You drop to the ground to swipe at the left man’s legs. He cries in pain, electrocuted and stumbling over himself. You slash his chest and kick him backwards.
You yell when you feel a hot surge rip through your right side, and you curse yourself for nearly forgetting about the man on the right. With all your strength, you launch your left blade into his shoulder, pinning him against the concrete wall behind him. You raise your other sword to deliver a final blow, but the click of a blaster makes you freeze.
“That’s enough! ” Khan’s voice is unhinged, “I’ve had enough of you, you fucking whore. I’m not just going to kill you; I will break you. I will throw you to the ugliest creatures in this galaxy and let you rot!”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Another blaster click. Mando’s smooth voice sounded like a song from an angel. Relief washed over you like an ocean wave. You dropped your hands to the side, and turned to Khan with a victorious grin.
“He can bring you in warm, or he can bring you in cold.”
You knew the Mandalorian was smirking under that shining beskar helmet.
Khan cursed loudly, finally accepting defeat. He dropped his blaster to the ground, and Mando roughly pulled his wrists to bind them. You trudge over to Aayn’vida, unlocking her restraints.
“Sorry I gave you such a scare back there,” you say, holding out your hand for her to take “I really didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay. You did what you had to,” She croaks. As you go to pull her up, however, a sharp pain shoots through your waist and you cry out.
“Dr. Y/N, you’re bleeding!” Aayn’vida cries as she catches you and loops your arms over her shoulders.
Any relief that you felt at the Mandalorian’s return and the capture of the bounty quickly dissipated when you looked down at your side. You could feel that your skin was singed, and red was seeping through your godforsaken lab coat and dripping further down your legs. Your head is crescendoing with pain, and black is creeping into the corners of your vision. You haven’t felt a blaster wound with a migraine before; Aayn’vida is hastily hobbling you to the ramp of the Razor Crest. Her words are becoming garbled; you hear her call out for Mando. You think he said your name.
The last thing you see are the shadows of his beskar helmet, and the last thing you feel are his leather gloves, scooping you up and carrying you up the ramp into the ship. He says your name over and over again, and you make out only a few of his words.
“Stay with me.”
“Y/N, please.”
He’s setting you on his bunk, stripping you of your lab coat, and spraying the area with bacta spray. You wail at the agonizing sting, and your vision is completely blurring over. You were in so much pain. You feel leather fingers against your cheek; he’s wiping away tears you didn’t know were falling.  He’s shushing you softly as he ties your lab coat around your waist as a temporary gauze.
“Sssh, lay down ,” he whispers as he gently eases you down onto a bed, “You’ll be okay, cyar’ika.”
The bed is his. You thought he brought you to your old bunk, but it’s his. You know it.
“It still smells the same.”
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spoonielivingfree · 3 years ago
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Taking Chances//Chapter 3
Jac spent the weekend in bed. The headache overwhelming. Nausea and dizziness so consuming that Emma had brought the sick bowl into the bedroom and looking after her mother. Jac did contemplate calling Jonny to take Emma as he had moved back into the area but she didn't want him to think she was too sick to look after Emma. That may end in Jac losing Emma again and she didn't want that when there may be so little time left. Anyway, he was working all weekend and was taking Emma from Monday. She didn't want to unnecessarily disrupt him from his life over a bad migraine. "Heavy weekend," Sacha asked on Monday morning, walking into the hospital at the same time as Jac, who had sunglasses on. Jac gave him an icy glare, not that Sacha could see behind the sunglasses. "I wish." She responded. It was just the tumour symptoms. "The tumour is giving me migraines." "You should be at home resting Jac." "I'll be fine. I'm not cutting anymore anyway. I can hide in the office if I need to." She said as they got in the elevator, Sacha noticing Jac wobble and hold into the wall. "Ever so fine." He said sarcastically. "Shut up Sacha," Jac replied. Sacha walked her to her office despite much protesting once getting out of the lift, worried about how wobbly she seemed and not wanting her to have a fall. Jac took her sunglasses off once she was in her office and could control the lighting, getting on with work, having to run to the toilets to vomit. "Everything okay?" Max asked, hearing sounds of someone vomiting when she came out of the cubical she was in. "It's me, Max," Jac said before vomiting again. "Jac are your Anti emetics not helping?" "What do you think?" She replied harshly. Flushing the toilet, slowly getting herself up and out of the cubical. "Oh Jac," Max said. The make-up didn't hide how much she was suffering. "Have you been keeping fluids down?" "Yeah. I'll be fine." Jac responded. The last thing she wanted was for people to make a fuss and send her down to the ED for fluids. "Okay, well I'll prescribe you some ondansetron. Might work better." Max responded, looking at Jac. The surgeon looked really unwell. Normally she would only prescribe it as a last resort Or for cancer patients as it was one of the more expensive anti-sickness medications for the NHS, but she knew she could justify a bit of leeway for Jac to be prescribed it. "Thank you," Jac replied. She still felt sick and planned to work reclined on her office sofa to help ease the extent of the symptoms. But at least now she'd thrown her breakfast up she should be able to get a few uninterrupted hours of work in, and it was Jonny's week with Emma so she could go home and sleep after work. Chloe paged her when a patient had an emergency. Eli wasn't responding. He'd said something about needing a longer lunch break to go off hospital premises. "We need to operate immediately." "Okay. You need to take the lead though and remind me to hire another cardio-thoracic surgeon." Jac knew she really shouldn't be operating but right now there was no choice. Her and Chloe were currently the only two cardio-thoracic surgeons on the ward right now. Everyone else either had a day off, was on the night shift or on their lunch break. Darwin definitely needed an extra pair of hands now Jac shouldn't be operating. "Uh yeah, sure." Chloe responded, knowing the tumour symptoms were clearly going to remain too bad to safely lead a surgery. Eli came down to the theatre once he was back from his lunch break. "Do you need me to take over Jac?" He asked. She seemed okay but he knew he should check to make sure everything was in fact okay and she shouldn't really be in theatre with a symptomatic tumor regardless. "All under control." Jac replied. Eli watched from outside the theatre, standing by incase she suddenly needed him to step in. Fortunately she was okay and left Chloe to close. Jac leaned on the sink after scrubbing out. "Are you okay?" Eli asked. "Yeah. Just a little pre-syncope." Jac replied, praying it would pass. "I'm going to get a wheelchair." "I
don't need a wheelchair Eli. Just help me back to my office." She hadn't yet fainted as a result of the tumour and new it would stay at pre-syncope so she could walk. It'd just be hard. Luckily with Eli's help and the length of time she had spent working on Darwin meant she could navigate the corridors back to her office even with her vision blurry and ears ringing from the pre-syncope. Eli complied, not wanting to argue with Jac over her health and got her laying down in her office, checking her blood pressure and sugar.  "When did you last keep something down?" He asked, noticing her sugars were low. "If you mean something other than water and electrolyte tablets I can't remember." "Okay, I'm going to get you IV glucose." "I don't need an IV, Eli. Just get me a juice I'll be fine. I'm not that low." Eli sighed and got her some orange juice. "If you can't keep it down or it doesn't help you need something more though. No arguments." "Okay, mum." She replied sarcastically, sipping at the juice.  "Don't you have real patients to see?" "Going to see them now Jac. If you need me for anything let me know." He replied, leaving her office. Jac went home early to have the video call with Amelia in private. Not wanting to tell everyone that she had decided a surgical route yet. She left the hospital and drove herself home. The pain in her head was coming back and her vision was going. She had to pull over until it passed, taking another tablet and applying a topical treatment to her head. She was relieved to get through the door safely and in time for her call. She knew she needed to think about not driving anymore but she hated public transport and ubers every day would add up more than her pride would allow. The call with Amelia went well. She wanted copies of all her previous scans to assess growth and set a feasible yet realistic date for surgery with Jac. Once she came off the call she got a phone call from her daughter, saying goodnight before going to bed herself. It was early for her but the tumour had been exhausting her between her eye muscles overcompensating for her deteriorating vision, the extra concentration needed to do basic tasks and the nausea and vomiting. At least Max prescribing her ondansetron meant she'd been able to keep food down that evening.
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dominiquegroves-blog · 6 years ago
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10 weeks
         Most of you probably wont read this, and that’s okay because this is more so for me than anything else. This isn’t a pity party or a cry for attention. I figured if I took the time to really think about my feelings and put them down on paper that it would somehow help me heal, and maybe help someone else going through a similar situation. So here we go.
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        For weeks now, I’ve had a thousand thoughts and emotions flowing through my body and have until this moment been able to put them into words. Dozens of people, including my husband, have asked me over and over again how I am doing and all I could think to say is that I was “fine” or “ok”, because I didn’t actually have an answer. I couldn’t process how I was feeling. I didn’t know how I was supposed to be feeling.  Part of me questioned whether or not I had the right to be depressed since I was only pregnant for such a short amount of time. Was I being dramatic? Did I have a right at all to be so heart broken since, after all, 50% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage? It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later as I was laying in bed, unable to sleep, that I finally forced myself to mentally relive the events that led me to this place; and I finally had my answer, I was sore.
            Usually “sore” isn’t a word you would use to describe your emotional state. That may be why it took me so long to be able to put my feelings into words. But in my case, it wasn’t any one thing I was healing from. Over the course of a week I was hit with one traumatizing event after another without any time in between to process the previous one. It’s kind of like when you over work a muscle, or work out the same body part multiple days in a row at the gym. A couple of hours, or a couple of days later you experience a nagging soreness that can make the slightest movement painful. That’s what I was experiencing, only emotionally. A nagging soreness that made everything unbearable.
            It started on Monday, September 24th. I had a normal prenatal check up. They took my vitals and blood samples and did a pelvic exam. By this point the baby was in it’s 9th week. We had already seen the flickering of it’s little heart beat during an ultrasound 3 weeks prior. Everything seemed perfectly fine, including my blood work, so we had no concerns. The medical assistant offered to use a doppler so that I could try to hear the heartbeat and started glopping gel on my stomach. After about a minute of hearing nothing but static and my own heart beat, I began getting anxious. She assured me that it was normal not to pick up a heartbeat yet on a doppler and said that it was probably just too early.  I hadn’t been having any worrisome symptoms so I relaxed, as much as someone with anxiety could, and put it in the back of my mind.
            Two days later we arrived at the hospital for our second ultrasound. I was working at the time as a nanny for two babies who were also with us. Cody and the kids were sitting in the waiting area watching “Trolls” on his phone while I went in for the scan. Before she began I prayed over and over to myself “please find a heart beat, please find a heart beat”. Maybe it was mother’s intuition that I knew something was wrong, or maybe every pregnant woman experiences the same few nerve-wracking seconds before their ultrasound.  Either way, after what seemed like years of moving the probe around, the technician asked me if I had had a previous ultrasound. Red flag. She then told me we were going to do a Transvaginal Ultrasound. I asked her if it was too early to see anything with the standard ultrasound. She said “no” and my heart sunk.
             A few minutes later she finally said to me “I, uh…well, there doesn’t seem to be a heart beat. It appears that the baby stopped growing a day or two ago”. She looked down. I stared. I don’t know what I was staring at because I didn’t see anything. I couldn’t tell you what was on that screen. I just stared at it, listening to what she was saying while trying to form a thought. She politely waited for me to respond but all I could say was “so is it…” I refused to say the word dead. I wouldn’t even allow myself to think it. She looked at me the way you would look at an injured puppy and said “I’m not really allowed to say, but the doctor wants you to come to her office straight from here anyway so”… pointing to the screen she explained “if there were a heart beat, we would see a flickering in this area, but um, there doesn’t seem to be anything going on”.  I continued to stare. Eventually I looked at her and said “okay”, got dressed, thanked her, which now seems like a funny thing to do, and walked out of the room. I don’t know if she had spoken to Cody before I got out or if it was the look on my face that clued him in but he knew. All I could do was look down and try to hold it together until we got to the car. As soon as we got the kids loaded in the car, we both broke down.
             It was a short drive to the doctor’s office but in those couple of minutes I tried to gather myself. Again, Cody had to wait with the kids so I asked him to wait in the car. They called me back immediately and started taking my vitals. Thirty or so seconds in I completely lost it. Unfortunately, I am the type of person who hyperventilates when they get upset so here I am, hysterical, alone in the middle of the doctors office. The nurse didn’t know what to say so she just got me a box of tissues, asked if I wanted her to get Cody and left the room. I was trying not to think and to focus on breathing so I could get myself together but there were posters of babies and the stages of fetal development on every wall. Helpful. Eventually the doctor came in and reiterated everything the technician had told me, only with less bedside manner. She then jumped in to explaining that I could wait for signs of a miscarriage to begin and to see if it occurs naturally but that I would most likely need a D&C and suggested I schedule it for Monday. I looked at her as if she were a Martian. Did she not realize how terrifying and devastating this all is? She prompted with “what would you like to do”? I was so aggravated that she could be so callous. I looked at her through tears and said, “I want to go home”.
            Terrible things happen in threes, right? Well, as it would happen, the battery on my boss’s nanny car decided to die. So, after unsuccessfully asking around for jumper cables, Cody and myself, along with two crying children who were long overdue for a nap, sat in the car until my boss arrived to give us a jump. He kept apologizing that we had to deal with this, referring to the car, not yet knowing that the car was only the cherry on top of the world’s shittiest day for us.
            Fast forward to my surgery. Cody called on Friday to schedule it for me. I didn’t have it in me to do it myself. The day of the procedure, Cody and I were sitting in the hospital room waiting for them to roll me to the operating room. My hair was braided down my back and I had a mint green hospital gown on. In any other situation I would have loved the color.  They told me I could leave my socks on. I laughed to myself. I was about to be the most exposed I would probably ever be in my entire life and they think I’m worried about my feet. A nurse administered a type of sedative through an IV and warned me that it is very strong and that I probably wouldn’t remember leaving the room. I made it to the hallway before I blacked out. Apparently I was still conscious though. I wasn’t put under anesthesia until after I was in the operating room. The nurse told Cody I “became very emotional” before they put me under. Wouldn’t you? When the surgery was over I remember the nurse waking me up, asking me if I was ready to go home. I told her “no, not yet”. That was the first time I had actually gotten sleep in days. Eventually the anesthesia wore off and I was forced to face reality, and my sore abdomen, and go home. Before we left the hospital they told me that I had lost a lot of blood during surgery and to take iron pills twice a day but they seemed unconcerned and we thought nothing of it.
            For the next few hours I tried to sleep but I had a headache. At some point I began to feel a weird, tingling sensation in my tongue that began to spread to my lips, then my cheek, then eventually the entire left side of my face. I texted Cody who was downstairs to tell him my face was numb. A second later he came flying up the stairs like a bat out of Hell. He asked what was going on but by that time my face had gone back to normal. While I was explaining to him what had happened, it started again, only this time it spread to my left hand as well. I was trying to explain to him what I was feeling but I couldn’t form a sentence. I couldn’t walk and I was stuttering and stumbling over words. By this point, Cody thought I was having a stroke. He called the hospital to fill them in on what was going on. I must have done something really freaky while he was on the phone because he suddenly said “ um, yeah, I’m bringing her in” hung up and loaded me in the car.
            The hospital on post was the closest so we went straight there rather than to the one where I had my surgery. I sat in the waiting room, in a wheel chair, doubled over with a horrible migraine. I had my eyes closed the entire time I was there because it was too painful to open them. I could hear little kids running back and forth yelling and I seriously considered screaming at them to shut up. Finally the triage nurse called us back. Long story short, with my eyes still closed, I threw up all over his fancy office trashcan. That was enough to convince him and he escorted us to a bed. The next hours consisted of blood work, IVs, CT scans, and ultrasounds. Finally, after obtaining my medical records from the other hospital they realized that my hemoglobin count was so low from the blood loss during surgery that I developed anemia. My baseline before surgery was at 12 grams per deciliter, now it was at 9 and dropping. They did 3 blood tests in the matter of 3 hours and the last one read around an 8. They told us that if it dropped any lower I would need a blood transfusion. They also said that they needed to transfer me back to the original hospital incase God forbid anything goes wrong they do not have surgery here. So, Domi took her first ride in an ambulance.
           When we got to the hospital the paramedics rolled me up to my room, which was, get this, a labor and delivery suite. If you cant appreciate the irony in that, good, because nether did I. It felt like a cruel joke. Later on I found out that Cody had asked a nurse which room I was in to which she replied with the number and said “labor and delivery, congratulations”! He then had to explain that there was nothing to celebrate. He went upstairs to find me and she probably went to find the nearest hole to burry herself in. We spent the night in that room listening to the annoying beeping of the machines while I routinely got poked and prodded to check my hemoglobin levels. Eventually they decided to give me an intravenous iron supplement. Only then did I actually start to feel better. My numbers began to improve, not by much, but enough to discharge me. We left around 3’oclock in the afternoon. We went home and I immediately started packing. We already had a trip planned for New Jersey for the following day. It was supposed to be the weekend of our gender reveal (he was a boy, by the way). As depressing as that was and as shitty as I felt, all I wanted to do was go home and see my family. So we packed our suitcases, brought the dogs to the boarder and left for the airport around 3 am.
            It’s two weeks later now. I’m still not 100% better. I ended up quitting my job because both physically and emotionally it was too straining for me. There are still days that I wake up with a splitting headache that I can’t shake. I still cry at the drop of a hat. My energy level is at an all time low. I have no desire to eat, or do much of anything for that matter. Needless to say I still have a lot of healing to do and Cody and I decided that I would do that best while taking it easy at home. If you actually read this far, I’m impressed and also thankful that you took the time to try to understand what both Cody and I have been dealing with. I didn’t write this to throw myself a pity party, but instead to help myself heal and find closure. All of the horrible, little things added up were traumatizing, especially being Cody and I are so far away from family, so it was a lot for us to process. But every day we are making progress and continue to grow stronger.
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rylredrants · 3 years ago
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20 Years Ago
It’s been 20 years since that day. And just like I wrote in the only ‘memory’ referencing 9/11 on my Facebook, I don’t want to jump on a bandwagon or soapbox. I don’t want to join the throngs of people answering the question that, for those of my generation, needs no explanation… “Where were you when?”
But I can’t not write today.
For me, the where was easy. I was in Colorado Springs.
To say it’s an area with a large military community doesn’t do justice to the sentiment. The Air Force Academy, Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Stations, Fort Carson Army Post, Peterson Air Force Base, and Schriever Air Force Base are all within an hour’s drive, give or take traffic. My new husband was stationed at Fort Carson, a Cavalry Scout.
My mother called me in hysterics- which was not unusual, waking me up earlier than normal. I was working at the Olive Garden as a server. My daughter was 4 years old.
I got up, took her to daycare, and went to work. There was a TV on the same kind of AV cart we got excited about in school sitting inside the server’s station on one side. We didn’t have customer-facing televisions and this was long before smartphones were in everyone’s pockets.
Another military spouse showed up for her shift, unaware of the events. She turned around to go home. She lived on Fort Carson and didn’t get through the gate for several hours.
That evening, I was part of a small sleepover of sorts where a handful of us “Scout Wives” held vigil together- crying and waiting for some kind of news from our husbands. The post was locked down tight. We didn’t get to hold them in our arms until the evening of September 12th.
The “where” is an easy question.
I think the bigger question is “WHO were you when? And who did you become in the aftermath?
Twenty years ago, I was a 22-year-old newlywed. He was my 2ndhusband- a cute boy in a green uniform with bright blue eyes, a grin for miles, and a quirky little gap between his front teeth. He had deployed to Bosnia straight out of basic training. We met in a bar within weeks of his return to the states, around Valentine’s Day of 2001.
The day the towers fell, he still was not old enough to legally buy a beer.
I had already rebuilt my life once when I left California and split up with my daughter’s father. Our new life was just beginning, but when my mother wailed, “You just married a soldier and we’re going to WAR!” I felt it. I felt my entire life unraveling again.
We moved to Germany the following spring where he was almost immediately sent to Kosovo. It was slated to be a 6-month tour. His replacement unit was sent to Iraq as part of OIF 1, so they extended their mission to 9 months. From there, there were moves back to Colorado, a separation, reconciliation, a move to Texas, and 2 more deployments to Iraq.
By the time we separated, I was 30 years old. We owned a home and he was slated for a third deployment to Iraq. The TBI (traumatic brain injury), PTSD, migraines, and back problems were so bad that he did not deploy, and was medically discharged before his 30th birthday.
We stayed on friendly terms for another decade, but every time I saw pictures of his new life and new wife I felt all of it all over again. He still had the big grin, but the sparkle in his eyes was gone.
That man has his name, his fingerprints, and his DNA but little else remained of the boy I married all those years ago. My husband went to war, but despite coming back upright and without a flag draped over his body, he never came back.
This is one of those things that people outside the military community don’t often realize. Whether or not you wear the uniform, war changes you. Military families deal with their own stress, trauma, loneliness, and fear from having loved ones in a warzone for weeks, months, and sometimes years at a time.
Waiting for that telegraph, knock on the door, or news story that mentions their unit… that part has changed over the years but living in that constant state of dread is the same.
It’s a state of anticipatory grief… waiting for the moment when the grief process will begin and be recognized by those around you.
When the same uniform walks through the door, the rest of the world sees the happiness of a homecoming.
But for so many, that happiness is often quickly replaced with learning who the person wearing the uniform has become in their absence.
New kinds of stress, trauma, loneliness, and fear often follow.
The stress of readjusting to sharing your home. The trauma, packed neatly away in their rucksack spills out all over the floor with their gear. Then comes the loneliness when they isolate and disconnect, and fear that you will become the target of their anger.
When my soldier returned, his drug of choice was video games. I called myself a ‘PlayStation Widow’ because he would spend every waking moment outside of work with a controller in hand, often not getting up to eat, drink or even smoke. His anger was most pronounced in his road rage- yelling, swearing, speeding, and tailgating.
I learned to manage his anger with my tears.
The rage would take hold and I would take responsibility for it, trying to figure out how I could have caused it. ‘What did I do? How can I fix this? What does he need?’ Eventually, I realized that he only calmed down once I’d become so spun up into it that I’d broken down in my own panic.
Over a decade later, when my current partner, Pirate, is struggling with his mental health, my first instinct is still to take responsibility.
It’s only because of the therapy, medication, and communication, on both sides, that I’m able to acknowledge and support him without taking it on as my own.
I swore I’d never get involved with military personnel again when that marriage ended.
What I hadn’t considered is that relationships are often brought about by proximity. I’ve lived near military installations for most of my adult life- Forts Carson, Hood, Meade, and Huachuca stateside, plus 2 years in Germany.
Friends, lovers, 2 ex-husbands, and my current partner have all brought their own trauma-filled rucksacks along with them, and into my life.
They each had their own experiences and their own way of handling things.
Dirty D had a picture on his MySpace of himself crouched down, naked, pistol in hand that was taken shortly before he was hospitalized for holding the gun to his head. I was friendly with his wives and girlfriends, including the one he moved to Idaho with to live off the grid on a hand-built homestead.
Taz was working nights as a bouncer when we met. He was sent to Germany only to be medically discharged and returned to Texas because his body was too damaged from previous trips to “the sandbox” to deploy again.
The Postman shared stories he wrote about his time in Mogadishu, Somalia. You probably know that as the place where "Black Hawk Down" happened. We met while he was on leave from Iraq and he later emailed more stories to me from Afghanistan.
The Mad Scientist once talked about being with his unit early on during Operation Iraqi freedom. Food was scarce so they were only getting one MRE a day. He had a stash of candy bars that he broke small pieces off from to share with the guys in his unit that were struggling the most with hunger.
MM also experienced those lean rations and hunger along with going days on end unable to get clean. The bulk of his PTSD revolved around food and cleanliness.
We once drove over 3 hours to go to a ‘Princess Bride’ themed burlesque show. The venue said they had food, and we didn’t have time to get dinner before going to the theater. When he discovered that the concession stand was closed he had a meltdown, leaving me alone to go get a hamburger at a bar down the block.
Pirate has nightmares, crying out in his sleep and trembling so violently that our bed shakes. He was medically discharged from the Army before his unit deployed. He lives with survivor’s guilt on top of the PTSD he developed as a 5-year-old missionary kid in Kenya during a civil uprising.
And none of this takes into account the first responders, civilians, and all of their families who have been impacted by this.
Here we are 20 years later...
I just saw a video where a teacher discussed telling her students about 9/11. She explained that there were 3 targets that symbolized the very idea of America in their own way. The World Trade Center was a representation of the American economic power, the Pentagon is a symbol of military power, and the 3rd target, the Capitol is the seat of our democracy.
20 years later, the 3rd target was attacked again.
This time, the attack did not come from foreign powers but instead from home-grown terrorists, radicalized to believe the blatant lies of a spray-tanned reality TV star who is spending this anniversary as a ringside commentator at a casino boxing match in Florida. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.
We are in a politicized pandemic that quite literally almost killed my own mother last week. I’m living in the hottest city in America where we moved for a job that Pirate was fired from 3 weeks after we signed our year-long lease.
Oh, and the Capitol police have requested the fences be put back up for the “Justice for J6” rally next weekend. These 'very fine people' are gathering to show solidarity for those who literally smeared shit on the halls of our democracy.
Showing support for those arrested for assaults that left several people injured. Five people died shortly before, during, or after the event, and 4 officers who responded to the riot died by suicide in the months since.
Today there are people all over social media posting stories of where they were that day.
But others are the younger people who have been taught to “remember” an event that was little more to their personal history than a scary movie on TV. They were too young or too far removed from it to carry the same scars as those who lived through the events of that day and all that came after.
I’m glad they only have to perform the remembrance rather than experience it. But for the rest of us, I think that it is part of the healing to look back on this anniversary and say,
“I was there. I was present. That day changed my life in ways that still matter to me.”
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mari-vargas · 3 years ago
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Hello sudden burst of energy from the what feels like a miracle I received today. I have three stories I’d like to share today, let’s see how many I actually get to today. (Keywords so I’ll remember the other two: sinusitis and unlimited) Two are older stories and the third is of my week this week and said miracle.
(Continuing this the next day; as it turns out said burst of energy basically managed to get me home from work.)
So, “spoiler alert”, the miracle I mentioned is merely that I do not need to go in to work on my regular weekend days. The story however is about why that wound up feeling like a miracle.
I suppose the best place to start is that where I work is a 24/7/365 operation. It never stops, not whole cloth. I work in the quality lab (which handles both quality control and quality assurance simultaneously). Nothing can operate without passing through the lab which means that if the lab goes down so does everything else on site. There’s a couple different types of shifts on site for the needs of the particular areas, but in the lab we have 8hour shifts 5days a week. My shift is day shift, Thursday-Monday (my weekend is Tuesday/Wednesday).
If we need an extra person or someone calls off and needs to be covered etc, one of the other analysts will be assigned to work said extra shift as overtime (OT). For the most part we have this volunteer declaration where we the analysts can declare what days we are willing to work OT if needed. If there are not enough yes’s to cover what’s needed, then there’s the likelihood of forced OT which goes by lowest hours, and if there are two people tied for lowest hours then whoever has the lowest seniority. Many of the analysts try to take as much OT as they can because they appreciate the boost in their paycheck. As such, others who don’t want it generally don’t need to. I am one of the analysts who is no across the board, primarily because while I am in a much better place than high school when I had insomnia I still have issues with sleep and I live an hour away from where I work which in total means that for an “8 hour shift” I’m actually away from home for 11 hours. A 16 hour shift means that, if I get a hotel room (of which generally the closest to my work is about half an hour away) I can maybe just wrangle half of my typical amount of sleep.
Now, on occasion I will volunteer on my “Friday” because by volunteering I can get my hours averaged in so that I’m no longer on the bottom of the totem pole. I did so a couple months ago because I was getting forced OTs over and over and needed to be able to do certain things and know that yes I actually could guarantee my availability on a given day or time. And by volunteering on my “Friday” I then had my weekend to recover without having to do a turn around PLUS if I were to volunteer on one of my weekend days I’m pretty much guaranteed winding up with a double. So anyways I did so I’d be averaged in…only to have that only last about 2 weeks.
Before I go any further: why is there so much OT right now? Well let’s back it up to…I think January of this year. One of our grave shift analysts realized he was making far more in passive income from his real estate business than as working as an analyst and so he moved on. Before our bosses had even started getting any bites for that, another analyst (now from day shift) snagged a position at a different site in the company in a higher position than he was in with us. Ok so far not too bad really. Right around the same time another day shift analyst had to go out for a couple of months due to foot surgery—on both feet and obviously not at the same time. It’s not been almost 6 months and we still don’t know yet when she’ll be cleared to come back (secret aside from my brain—if she even does choose to come back). Okay, okay, well…we’ve still got this… After a bit our most senior analyst volunteered to temporarily switch to the open grave shift because that’s the roughest to try and cover with OT. She was on day shift (for those keeping count that is now 3 people short all from day shift but that’s our largest shift: 3 on grave, 4 on swing, 8 on day). Vacations hit and boy did they hit hard but in all honesty not as bad as November when we had one analyst test positive for covid on the rapid test performed by Occ Heath on site (he went to his doctor that same day for the more reliable test but that takes longer for results and it came back negative but damage done we were dealing with I think only 7 analysts then due to potential exposures—ps we’re pretty sure by now he’s essentially an anomaly for the rapid test because it almost happened again but he got retested after some bureaucratic fumbling and got two negatives after the once again false positive). But we were managing..sort of. Another day shift analyst went out a couple months ago for either medical or vacation reasons I’m not sure. And about a month ago we had a third analyst leave our employ, her being from swing shift and in a relationship with the guy who left for real estate. Her two weeks notice had come before any new hires had started with us, of which we had three because boy oh boy we’ve been drowning because of course with everything opening back up companies who are customers to us or who use what we produce and needing way more to get back up and running and everything is backed up—ling and short we’ve had extra work plus a lot of special samples that by now really each constitute a whole new bench not to mention a new segment of production being tested out and potentially going to be a new product to be sold… Anyways our bosses had managed to convince their higher ups to let them higher one more person than the number who had left (again, at the time, 2). So they had told the first two at the same time, got permission for the third, then before the next onboarding third analyst leaves, so the bosses tell the fourth and final applicant who made it to the interview level that hey you’re in too. They managed to get the first two into a special, sooner onboarding and three weeks later the third started her onboarding and now half a month to a monthish later we’re still waiting for the fourth and I personally don’t know when they’ll be going us.
But anyways we currently have 3 (eventually 4) new hires training and it takes about six months to train said new hires on each bench, two weeks with a senior analyst two weeks alone rinse and repeat until you’ve gone through all benches. So…it’s gotten easier with the first two already having one bench under their belt. But I’ve gotten fairly off track to explain the background of my story. I’ve actually not had too terribly many forced OTs since the first two new hires finished their first 2 weeks and could be on their own on their first bench. Even when they moved to new benches.
So imagine, if you will, I walk in on Thursday, I’ve just come off my weekend which I spent up in the mountains with my SO because said SO is starting a new job with a school district as an IT person so we will no longer have any sort of overlap of days off except holidays. The grave analyst working the bench right by the door greets me as he usually does regardless of what bench he’s on. He says good morning, I say it back, only he then follows it up with something along the lines of “are you ready for your back to back double on your next weekend?” Yeah. I was on the schedule for four forced OTs as a “double-double” instead of having my days off. Cue the existential dread settling in. I moved throughout the day with that hanging on me, coming to terms with it. At afternoon lineout I caught a small break in that the analyst I’d be covering for on swing piped up “hey there was an error in the system, I only asked for Tuesday off”. Okay cool that makes 3 forced OTs instead…somehow already felt lighter. The next morning I take over from the most senior analyst who’d been on my bench that night and she offers to take my Tuesday swing OT “if I didn’t want it” since she’d be working day shift that day and her weekend is Monday/Tuesday (confusing but basically means she could do a day/swing double because she wouldn’t be working grave into day double). Okay cool…that would leave me with just the two day shifts over my weekend. Then throughout Friday my post nasal drip I woke up with starts getting really annoying as a runny nose. Saturday and the runny nose is also pressure in my sinuses. Sunday and I’m sure it’s a sinus infection despite my efforts to stop it. (I have a history with them and to any concerned over covid I get a weekly test at work and I was negative during this.) I will say though, my efforts seem to have made it a faster turn around than usual. Come Monday and I’m driving to work filled with existential dread because I don’t want to call off when I have these OTs because I had to do that last time (basically woke up late, anxiety blew up into a full blown panic attack caused me to throw up and wound up putting me out of commission with migraines and nausea and more various degrees of panic attacks until Saturday of that week…well the panic attacks continued but eventually tapered off to usual manageable levels). So anyways the posted schedule still has me for the double on Tuesday and day on Wednesday. The analyst who had previously offered to take the Tuesday swing was working OT that day and came up to me in the middle of the swift to ask if I had talked with the boss that makes the schedule about her offering to volunteer for me. Regardless of my thoughts on that, what I told her was that I had not yet, and after she reiterated her song and dance about how she’d volunteer if I didn’t want it I went straight up to that boss’s door and let her know. Turns out she was speaking with another of the bosses about the schedule because one of the first two of the new hires had already gotten the hang of the new bench after only a week and that coupled with us finally getting caught up on the extra samples because that same said bench had something happen at one of the plants it covers which then went down which lightened the load for like three different benches and yeah long story short she no longer needed so many people working overtime.
So she says to me, essentially, “how attached are you to working those day shift OTs on your weekend?” tells me the new hire is fine on his own et cetera et cetera. And guys? Tears immediately rushed to my eyes so fast and hard that they immediately flow down my face. It feels like the sky has opened and the sun has sought me out just to shine a warm beam of light through my heart. A burble of laughter bursts up my throat and out of my hardly used mouth (as I hadn’t spoken much at all that day). For those who have seen Rise of the Guardians it looked like a happy flake had landed on my nose. She says “There’s your smile! You’ve been looking so tired today and I was wondering why, but then I saw this schedule and realized it was preemptive exhaustion from what you had looking ahead.” During afternoon lineout she very pointedly wished me a happy Friday.
So yeah…it shouldn’t really be a miracle, but wow does it feel like one.
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brien-odylan · 7 years ago
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To Build a Home - Chapter Two
Heeey!
Yes, I know I said it was supposed to come out until last night, but I had a long day Thursday and a freaking migraine Friday. And now it’s 3:24 am of a Saturday morning, but here I am, trying to make it up to you.
I’m sorry if this one is a bit dull, but hey… A Blackinnon interaction. From this chapter on, a lot of flashbacks are coming up and I hope you like it!
Enjoy!!
Tag: @deerprongs, @padfootagain, @marlmckitten, @team-prongs, @darkle-elkrad
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“You do realize you’re being ridiculous, right?
While operation ‘Find Dad a Girlfriend’ was definitely a go and completely oblivious to the most important person involved, Sirius spent his time sat across a giggly James and a reasonable looking Lily. Of course the Black male had to get out of the house as soon as he was done talking to his daughter. Of course he chose to go to his best friends’ house and, of course, he had told them exactly what he had seen that morning. What he didn’t expect, however, was for them to completely roll their eyes at him and, in James’ case, laugh at his serious problem.
“Excuse me?” Sirius said turning to Lily, one eyebrow up. If he were standing up, he’d be full mode with his hands on his waist, looking her dead in the eye. “What are you implying here, Evans?”
Lily just rolled her eyes. 19 years since she had last used this name and he still insisted on calling her that. Maybe it was in old times sake, she couldn’t quite be sure, but, despite her outside reaction, she felt warm inside whenever he called her that. It made her feel like they were 17 again and didn’t have a care in the world. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel like they were back at Hogwarts. James, Sirius, Remus and Peter causing havoc everywhere, pulling pranks on anyone they set their eyes on, but, yet again, surprising everyone at how smart they could really be.
But if she opened her eyes, it dawned on her how much things had changed. They weren’t teenagers anymore. They weren’t at Hogwarts and there wasn’t 4 Marauders anymore. The war, Voldemort, had taken it away from them. And in those few seconds, where everything came flooding back into her mind, she slightly hated the fact that Sirius still referred to her as ‘Evans’. She knew he meant it in the most adorable way, as he had always called her that, but it also remembered her of how much they had lost over the years.
“I didn’t spend six years and a half trying to convince her to go out with me and then, finally, marrying her to have you calling Lily ‘Evans’, mate,” James said from his side of the table, a grin still visibly on his face, his eyes gleaming with mischief. Even after all those years, that side of him (along with Sirius’) was not lost.
“Not the point,” Lily said waving her hand dismissively. “The thing is, Sirius, you’re overreacting. Alya and Lyra are 18. They’re adults and, let’s be honest, they are your daughters,” she completed, her eyes staring directly at him, smiling as she noticed his reaction.
“Excuse me,” Sirius said once again, his eyebrows frowning.
“Oh, come on,” James rolled his eyes. “Remind me again why you broke two ribs back in seventh year, Pads.”
Sirius couldn’t help the grin that invaded his features. His hands hurriedly moved to his ribcage, brushing against the fabric of his shirt as if the bandages were still there, if the region was still sore even after all those years. The memories came flooding back to his mind, and he knew that any attempt of trying to repress it would be in vain.
He was late. He was incredibly late and he knew it. But even so, Sirius couldn’t force himself to detach his arms from around Marlene’s waist, his head burried in her neck as he kissed the exposed skin, adding a few soft bites every now and then, her hands roaming all over his back.
The small sighes escaping her lips were enough to make him forget all about practice, all about any magical sport. The low sounds were like fuel to him, making Sirius persist at his task of marking the girl all over, something to show everyone how off the limits she was.
“I should go,” he mumbled against her skin, his eyes closed sucking in the feeling her nails scratching against his back provided, a small hiss leaving his lips.
“Mhmm,” she hummered back, her lips now moving to his jaw, completely rejecting every attempt he made of moving.
“No, I really should,” he said once more, his eyes finally opening and gazing her incredibly blue ones. “James is going to kill me.”
“Let him try,” she said back, a devious smirk on her face.
When they first started whatever they had between them, Sirius knew he was doomed. He knew he would never be able to resist her ever again from day one, but he didn’t care, nor wanted to. The casual hookups then started to be more than just that. They could be seen walking together all day, spending free time together, talking rather than snogging and then, finally, snogging in every bloody corner. It was like Sirius Black and Marlene McKinnon had been sewed together over the night and it was hard to see them out of each other’s reach.
The Hogwarts community was taken by surprise. No one was expecting it to happen, as they could be seen throwing offenses at each other from across the hall and the rumors about the new couple in campus spread like leaves in the autumn breeze.
“As much as I like to hear that you think I can outlast James in a fight,” the boy started with a chuckle. “I don’t want to put it to a test. You know how he can be when it comes to Quidditch.”
And indeed she knew. Marlene had had her troubles with the Gryffindor Captain more than once. James was absurdly competitive, even more when it involved his team playing against Slytherin, to which she was the Captain of.
She knew the black haired boy ever since they were kids and she knew how he hated losing, putting 110% of himself into any match and scolding whoever didn’t follow his exemple. Or the ridiculous practicing schedules he came up with. For that reason, she knew it was better if Sirius would just leave the room and go to that pitch, play serious for a couple of hours and then join her back in his bed.
“He’s so sure he can beat me,” she said smiling, her arms finally letting go of Sirius and pushing him back slightly. “Are you, Black?”
“Don’t even try to say you can win this match, McKinnon,” he said standing up, his eyes scanning the room in search of his lost jersey. “You can’t,” he completed.
“Is that a challenge?” she asked, her eyes gleaming in the dim light of the dorm. “’Cause, if you don’t know, you’d have to win by a hundred points to come first.”
Sirius smiled at her and shook his head. She had this stupid idea that she could win the Quidditch Cup, but he knew, that even if his team was in second place, there was no way Slytherin would make it. James had pushed them into training way more since Gryffindor had lost against Ravenclaw. The players’ sleeping schedule was fucked up, they were training hard and all the time. They knew any other team wouldn’t stand a chance against them. It was a fact and Sirius didn’t even need to spy on his girlfriend to know it.
“I won’t go easy on you, McKinnon,” the boy stated, his hands finally taking a hold of the small pile of clothes he had beside his table, sorting through it and finding his training gear. 
“I don’t expect you to,” she shrugged. “I’d like to have you at peak performance.”
It was incredible how she could change the mood around them with a single sentence. Sirius could detect every kind of meaning behind Marlene’s words, every time. Consequently, it wasn’t hard to understand what she clearly had meant and while she was talking about Quidditch, she was also talking about something else.
“Don’t worry,” he winked. “I’ll be back in no time and we can resume whatever we were doing.”
The girl casted a glance in his direction, her lips forming a devious smile. She wasn’t going to let go of him that easily. She wanted to make him suffer a little bit for leaving her alone in his bedroom, even if it wasn’t really his fault. To be honest, it was. Sirius shouldn’t have started something he was not going to be able to finish any time soon.
“Ok,” Marlene said rolling out of bed, her hands coming in contact with one of Sirius’ white shirt, buttoning it down her frame, her bare legs in his plain sight. “Just keep in mind that I’ll be here, all alone, with all this time to spare,” she looked at him, her hands running down her body slowly. “In nothing but this white, almost see-through, shirt of yours.”
If there was anything in Sirius’ mind, it now had fled, leaving him dazzled. How could he resist such a sight right in front of him, so close he could touch it. A lot of promiscuous thoughts were running through his mind that moment. What if he just skipped practice and stayed? He surely saw more effect in being with Marlene. He wanted nothing more than to just run his hands over her body, kiss her mouth until her lips went numb, fuck her until she couldn’t take it anymore, only to start it all over again.
“That’s just mean,” he managed to say, his mouth dry, his eyes wide. He suddenly was very aware of the unwanted bulge that grew in his pants. 
With a smirk, Marlene just winked at him and ushered the boy out of the room, not giving him a second glance and closing the door right after he left. To say that Sirius Black was in for an awful practice was the understatement of the year.
He didn’t know how he reached the pitch. His thoughts were so immersed in the last vision he had seen before leaving, that his brain didn’t even acknowledged the fact that his feet were moving. 
“You’re so fucking late!” was what greeted him. James was pissed and it was understandable. “I swear to Merlin, Padfoot… If you fuck this up, I’m gonna kill you.”
Sirius dismissed it. He was full of James’ threats and he knew he’d never really do anything. James Potter was just so set into winning that he didn’t know where to stop, never had. No one could blame him, though. The last game was coming up and it was their last year. No one wanted to leave Hogwarts without having the Quidditch Cup.
They were training hard that day. There was no going back until they could do every single play correctly, until they’ve mastered all the positions they should be in. It was already ten past seven. The sun was long gone and the darkness had surrounded them and everyone was tired. The sweat was dripping down their bodies, their hands were cold and their vision was already blurred. The entire team had been playing for the past 3 hours and they weren’t expecting James to call the quits any time soon.
Sirius wanted nothing more than to just throw a bludger to his best friend’s head. He was sore, he was tired and, to be honest, he was horny. And, once again, his mind had wandered to his girlfriend. The image of Marlene in his room had not left his head in any of the time. He could still remember how she looked, her hair in tangles, her plump lips in a pout and her long legs in full display. It was hard to have to play Quidditch while he could be with her, buried in the silk skin of her legs.
There should be a warning outside the pitch saying that no one should play without being 100% focused. Maybe there was, but Sirius didn’t know and wouldn’t even think about it until it was too late. He never saw the bludger coming in his direction, he never heard his team mates yelling at him. All he did was stare into an empty space until he felt something hitting him, full force. His hands lost hold of his broom and soon he was spiriling to the ground.
~*~
Marlene was bored out of her mind. She had lost count of how many times she had looked at the mirror, fixing her hair and applying a new layer of lipstick while waiting for Sirius. She knew the practice would be ruthless, but it had been almost five hours since he had gone.
A rushed knock to the door snapped her out of her thoughts and a worried looking James walked in, startling her even more.
“You need to come to the hospital wing right now,” was the first thing he said once he walked into the room. He ignored the clothes spread around the room and the barely clothed girl in front of him. It was a scene he was, unwillingly, used to at this point.
“What happened?” the girl asked concerned at the black haired guy’s rush.
“Sirius fell off his broom,” he sighed. “Broke two ribs and is being incredibly annoying so, please, just go ease him down.”
James Potter should not be the one entrusted to give that kind of news. Had it been anything a little more serious, Marlene would be on the verge of having a heart attack at how subtlety was not a word in the boy’s vocabulary. Nevertheless, she threw some clothes on and hurried to the hospital wing in record time, reaching the ward and entering it in under ten minutes.
As soon as the door closed behind her back, she could see a very distressed looking Sirius laying in bed, his upper body involved in bandages, his face covered in bruises.
“Merlin’s pants, Black,” she murmured as soon as she reached him, her eyes scanning him all over. “All of that just because you were too scared of facing me next week?”
A small chuckle came from the boy, but soon was replaced by a painful grimace, his eyes closing in a feeble attempt of trying to contain it.
“You wish,” he replied in a small voice, his head thrown back.
If anyone were to walk in that moment, they would not see Sirius Black and Marlene McKinnon. Or at least they wouldn’t believe it was them. The couple was leaning into each other, talking in low voices and acting caringly. It was out of the ordinary to see them acting like this, but special times asked for special measures. 
“Are you in much pain?” she asked running her hands through his hair.
“Only when I breathe,” Sirius managed to say through gritted teeth.
Nothing more was said between them, Marlene choosing to let him rest while the potions were taking effect. She knew Sirius pretty much and was sure he was going to be whining all the time. It was going to be along night.
“Ok, ok,” Sirius said rolling his eyes. “I get your point. I wasn’t the most focused when it came to having a semi-naked Marlene in my room.”
Lily looked at both of them and rolled her eyes. She thought she would be used to that by now, but she wasn’t.
“No,” James shook his head. “My point is you were a little manwhore walking around the grounds. Can you really expect Alya and Lyra to be pure?”
“Yeah, I don’t like what you’re implying here,” the Black male said.
“They’re teenagers, Sirius!” Lily said once again, exasperated this time. “Stop acting like they’re doing something wrong. They are living their lives and being happy, ok? So suck it up and man up. What would Marlene say?”
The mention of his wife made him stop whatever he was going to say. It was one thing having him mentioning her when they were together, another was to have her mentioned by someone else, asking him what she would do if she was alive. That situation made his heart ache and his mind go blank. It had been years, but the fact that she wasn’t around anymore was not something he would ever grow used to.
Lily realized that a bit too late. She saw his eyes cast down and his head shake, but the damage was already done. She couldn’t say anything else other than apologize for what she had said. She remembered how extremely hard it was for him. The sleepless nights he spent, not daring to believe a word everyone was saying about her being dead, the amount of time and money he spent on looking for her, how he had almost lost his will to live. If he hadn’t the girls, he’d probably not be there.
The tension, however thick, was cut as soon as a stressed looking Remus walked in through the door, his tired frame seeming even more worn out, the bags under his eyes more prominent and his shoulder hanging low. The once young Marauder was the epitome of exhaustion, but as soon as his eyes landed on Sirius, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Did you enjoy scaring my son today, Sirius?” he asked standing by his side.
“He’s a bad influence,” Sirius limited himself to say, not exactly looking at his friend’s direction.
Remus raised his eyebrows, not really believing what he was hearing.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but… Who’s coming back to Hogwarts this September?” he pressed. “Who made sure that Lyra wasn’t in detention all the time?”
The two men kept looking at each other, no other words coming out of their mouths for they already knew the answers to all of the questions. It’s not that there was a good or a bad influence, but when it came to them, the Blacks always seemed to corrupt the Lupins.
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shewhoridesonrainbows · 7 years ago
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Long Post - Hurricane Harvey
Ok so this is what happened:
Day 1 - started raining, water filled the street about ankle deep. Normal for my neighborhood. Steadily got deeper until about 4 am where it stopped rising. Nothing touching the house so we went to sleep.
Day 2 - woke up @ 10 to the water touching the edges of the doors, ankle deep when I stepped down. We started moving things higher just in case water came in the house. Sure enough, water started spilling into the house. It was coming in through the walls, guys. I have one pic of a small cable hole in my room just gushing water. The power went out and my phone got wet. We kept our dogs in their crates and put those on the couch.
When the water inside got to our calves my grandma and I started packing clothes in plastic bags. I even put my laptop in a trash bag then in the case, put that high up. I started asking the neighbors in 2 story houses if we could put our animals in a spare room. When nobody had room for them I had the idea to break into the abandoned 2 story across the street and set up a room or two for the animals. My grandma told me not to break into it cuz I'd get arrested AND my grandpa refused to leave so we tried to stick it out. The animals were put on top of the car in the garage. We tried to nap as much as we could but the water rose too much to sleep on the beds so we put pillows, blankets, and food into the attic. The men in my family being construction workers we brought hammers and saws up too so we could bust out the roof if needed. I. Could. Not. Talk. My. Grandma. Into. Leaving. The. Attic. Some 911 operator told her to go in the attic and nothing I said would dissuade her. The radio in the garage-car started emitting static so we knew the water reached the computer inside. My grandma started getting sick. She had cold and hot flashes, couldn't eat or drink, vomiting, and had diarrhea. All of our phones were low on battery.
Day 3 - As soon as there was enough light to move around outside my dad went wading/swimming (in sandles) to get help even with diabetic sores on his legs and feet. And I tried to talk my grandparents into moving into the vacant 2 story but they still said I can't break into a house. I said fuck that and cased the house anyways. The water was high enough that I had to tiptoe at the deepest point and the current was noticable. It was still rising. At the house I was prepared to bust out the front window but I went around back and the back door was wide open (so not breaking and entering). I went through the bottom part of the house and unlocked the front door. With our entry into the safe house secure I swam to a neighbor that has a small boat. He was super nice and when I explained my plan he was all too happy to let me use the boat. While he worked on getting the motor off the back (so we could pail out the water in it) I went back to my house and told my grandparents what I was going to do. My grandma was getting worse and my dad was still gone so my grandpa stayed with her while the neighbor and I worked on the motor. With water slowly rising we were working hard and I was getting more and more worried about my dad and grandma. 3 guys in a fan boat went by so we waved them down and told them about my grandma. They were in the middle of picking up a family but said they'd be back. The little boat was still not ready so we lifted it and shoved something under it so I could pail water while the neighbor worked on the motor. To my relief my dad rolled up in a huge army truck and started to help too. The fan boat came back and we helped load my grandma into it, too bad she took my grandpa's wallet with her but not her phone.
At the small boat we ended up just loosening the motor enough to toss it into the back and using it as is. My dad and I walked it right to our front door and loaded up two animal crates and some bags of clothes from the attic. We dropped that load off then went back for a blanket and some food and a crate of water. We locked up our house then hunkered down in the vacant one for the night. We were dry and the water was barely a foot into the bottom level (it was at least 3 and a half in our house). We let the animals out of the crates and fed them. I cut the bottom of my foot on a plastic hanger.
Whoever lived in the house before liked to make clothes and all of their fabric was kept nice and clean in a box so we had plenty of scrap cloth for the animals to nest in. We ate some and sat around. All we could do was wait and hope that my grandma remembered one of our numbers. Every phone was below 20% and that was dropping Everytime someone called or texted. It was almost dark when an unknown number called. My grandma's roommate at the hospital let her use her phone and we were able to find out she was at a Methodist hospital. We used the last bit of charge on my dad's phone to notify everyone, 3 phones left. We tried calling the number back later but my grandma was moved to a different room so we had no idea how to get a hold of her.
We grabbed quick snatches of sleep but with water still rising we were too worried to sleep long. A telephone pole floated by.. then a 16 ft section of fence parked itself in the yard. Around 10 pm grandma called again and told us the hospital was keeping her for 3-4 days so we were relieved that we heard from her again but her phone died (2 phones and 1 had water damage). My dad started showing signs of something wrong. He had a migraine and we didn't have his insulin if his blood sugar was high. We fixed the cushionless couch and armchair up for ppl to sleep on and used a bolt of semi-waterproof fabric so someone could sleep on the floor. We used our bags of clothes as pillows and slept off-and-on until morning.
Day 4 - my grandma's birthday when it was light enough to see around the living room we started making a list of stuff to grab from our house. The water had dropped half a foot so it was easier to get across. I immediately looked for medicine and the chocolate I knew would help keep his blood sugar up if it ended up dropping. We grabbed more food, more blankets, and other things that would make it more comfortable if we stayed (air freshener cuz it stank, litter and litter box for the cats). With 2 phones dead and the other two super low my dad and I decided to walk down to the gas station close by. Chargers, phones, and wallets were double bagged in trash bags and we set off. We walked about 3 miles only to find out that absolutely nothing had power. The emotions and stress that we had to handle only to lose the hope of contact caused my dad to have a severe anxiety attack. After it passed we got under the over pass and volunteers offered food and coffee. Both really helped warm us up and my dad got even warmer when someone offered a dry jacket. I went off to find some first aid for my dad's diabetic sores and someone with a car charger and a willingness to let is charge 2 phones. No luck on first aid but we were able to charge my grandparents' phones a little bit. We knew we had to get to my grandpa and make a decision; leave or stay?
None of the government affiliated could take us back in the neighborhood so we caught a ride in the back of a jacked up truck with some other guys. 3 of the guys came to my neighborhood from their dry, safe houses with river tubes. They only came out to play in the water. The truck dropped us off and we walked/waded 1.5 miles back to the safe house. The water was still dropping. my dad was determined to see my grandma on her birthday so we looked up the number to the Methodist hospital that we thought she was at. Turns out she was at a different hospital but they patched us through and we were able to talk to her through her room phone.
Knowing where she was and even knowing her room number we started preparing everything to leave. There's nowhere we could go with 7 animals.
I completely cleaned the one upstairs room with a door and set the main part of it for the dogs (shit ton of water and food, bedding, the works​,) but the was nowhere secure for the cats except for the tiny closets in the room. We busted a hole through the wall that separated the closets so the cats would have more room (just one more to add to the 50 that house already had) set up the litter box in one side and their food/water in the other. I hated leaving them but there's nothing else we could do. Just as we got clothes and phones backed into 3 bags a big truck came up and picked us up.
We rode around in that truck for close to an hour then waited under the windy over pass for at least another hour. Someone let us charge or phones while we were there and 2 female officers held a tarp so I could change into dry clothes and shoes.
Eventually my grandpa was able to contact a work friend who could pick us up and take us to the hospital with my grandma.
Finally in the room with my grandma we charged our phones and started notifying our loved ones. Upside: we are safe and in dry clothes. Downside: there is nowhere for us to go now. There's noone with room for us so we're sleeping in small waiting room chairs and I'm constantly worrying about our pets.
Random tidbits
I was barefoot for the first 3 days since I was trying to keep my shoes wearable and I didn't feel confident that I could feel my way around our house with shoes on. I put on sneakers when we moved the animals because the entryway of the safe house was covered in glass.
I was wearing swimsuit bottoms and a tank top every time I went into the water then changed into dry clothes when I got out.
The water was over my head when we were transporting the animals.
Most of our electronics were safe when we left so they'll most likely be ok when we get back.
For some reason my grandma put uncapped cheese whiz in a clothes bag so some clothes have cheese on them.
One vanilla car air freshener seriously helps stinky rooms.
Even with all the stress and hardship I had it easy. I repeat:
I HAD IT EASY
None of my family has died or gotten seriously injured and my pets are probably safe. We won't have to replace most electronics. And my grandparents had JUST did most of the work on buying a house so we have a definite place to live within a month.
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rydenstories · 8 years ago
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No one will acknowledge what was buried in my parents’ back yard
REDDIT
God, this is so strange. I really don't do stuff like this, honest. I'm not even a big internet person. I just don't know what to do. Everyone involved has given up except me and this seems to be the only place that provides people with answers in these cases, or even just a direction to go in.
I found it when my parents were out of town. They'd lived in the same house my entire life, had both retired from their jobs, and were doing a lot of traveling. During that time, they'd have renovations done on the house. It wasn't a huge surprise when they asked me to help while they were gone. Out of the three children they had, I was the only one that hadn't followed their footsteps in the medical field. I made a few too many mistakes at an early age and flunked out of high school. Construction was the only real option, but I'd made somewhat of a name for myself in that field. I owned my own business, and my parents would often hire us out on renovation jobs in exchange for discounted rates. I wouldn't have charged them at all, but they insisted.
When it all happened, they announced that they were vacationing to Canada to see Niagara Falls. During the time they planned to be gone, they put together a commission list of renovations they wanted to pay my crew to do. We'd worked for a week building a shed and replacing a few counters in the house. Work had gone by fine, and with job mostly being over, I sent most of my guys home. All that was really left were just personal things my mom had asked me to do. One of those tasks included starting digging a hole for a small koi pond my mother was planning.
I'd been digging for about an hour I think. I was enjoying the effort of the task and kind of zoning out, something I did pretty often when I worked alone, when I started uncovering plastic. Like a clear tarp or something. Admittedly, I was still a little zoned out, staring so puzzled at it before coming to the dawning realization that this didn't seem right. I thought about just going inside, calling my mother's phone, and asking her about it. Surely she'd know if something was buried in her back yard. Still, I continued to dig anyway.
It had started to get dark by the time I had completely uncovered all of the tarp, which seemed to be buried on top of something. I fumbled my phone out of my pocket, turned on my flashlight, and shined it into the hole. It was hard to tell at first. Hell, I had to crawl down into the hole and really look to be sure. Under the tarp were the remains of at LEAST two people. I bet I sounded like a damned fool to the 911 operator, who had to deal with me frantically stumbling over my words, trying to explain that there were fucking skeletons in a hole in my back yard.
First, it was two officers that arrived, who almost seemed like they thought I was joking. Or maybe they thought they'd look in this hole and find the remains of some dead family pet. However, when they saw what I'd seen, they both went pale and called in for all the overwhelming bullshit that came next. Interviews, which I had to defend my family, defend my siblings, and defend myself. Forensics teams sweeping the entire place, moving the bodies (turns out, there were 3, all belonging to children) at a surprisingly quick speed. Faster than it had happened, it was over. Forensics had their jobs to do. I, nor the police, could get ahold of my parents so that gave the detectives plenty of motivation to do their jobs. I didn't know what else to do, so I just called my sisters and told them the bare minimum of what I could. Just enough to get them out here, but not so much for them to be absolutely freaking out.
I barely slept that night, or the night afterwards. Nothing changed and nothing was updated until about three days later. They got a DNA match on the set of bones. My DNA. Somehow, one of those tiny skeletons belongs to me. The other two tested close to mine, and were later confirmed to be perfect matches to my sisters. I know how it sounds. Trust me, I feel like I'm literally losing my mind. I'm in so much shock that writing all of it down has been the only thing keeping me sane these past few days. This is my life and I'm horrified.
After finding out that information, it all slowly went off the rails from there. At first, everyone involved tried to tell me it was a lab fluke. Then, it was tons of excuses. Told me that they were sending the samples to other labs, talking to DNA specialists. They got kind of frantic after that from what I observed. I mean, EVERY expert was stumped. They couldn't understand how the DNA was a perfect match. They compared dental records that matched perfectly as well. They told us they were looking for someone who might know something. They told me this for weeks afterwards.
I don't know where they found him, but they eventually found someone I believe might know something.
They sat me down with him in one of those tiny interview rooms with the two way mirrors. They called him Detective Grady. He limped, wore an ill fitting brown suit, and smelled like he bathed in cheap cologne to cover the smell of cigarettes and something else I couldn't put a finger on. He was the kind of guy you'd see working at a funeral home, not with the police. Despite his severely off-putting appearance, he was surprisingly easy to talk to. Looking back, the entire interview was incredibly off in some way, but somehow nothing really seemed weird to me at the time. The questions he asked were normal enough, but elicited odd answers I'd never thought about before. Like, for example, he'd asked me about my health throughout my life. It has never crossed my mind, not once, but I've never been sick as far as I remember. No colds. No flus. I don't think I've ever even vomited unless I drank too much or ate something wrong. The questions were normal, but my answers weren't. I went home frightened.
Somehow, despite never seeing him afterwards, I feel I have never been out of Detective Grady's presence. It doesn't necessarily feel like being watched, but more like every space I enter is somehow occupied by him as well. I can't explain this.
My sisters were both given similar interviews with similar results. They were both scared. I remember sitting with them in the living room the night after. We agreed that something was obviously off about our childhood, but we just don't know what. It all feels foggy looking back now. If I think about it too hard, I get painful migraines.
At this point, we still hadn't heard from our parents. In fact, no one had. They packed up the car, left the hotel they were staying at in Canada, and have yet to be seen. I want to worry about them, they're my parents, but I'm afraid that they might know something. I don't wanna believe they had a hand in this, but they'd never run off like this before. They were attentive and loving parents our whole lives. That's something I'm alarming sure of.
Weeks went by with no word from the police or Detective Grady. My sisters and I waited at our parent's home, hoping for some ray of hope. We talked about seeking outside help on our own more than once. That's actually where NoSleep came up, the girls are both avid readers. Still, we were too afraid to make a move and possibly hurt the investigation we thought was underway. However, a call paid to the police station nearly a month later provided us with horrifying results; every single detective that worked the case had been transferred. No one working at the station had any record of the investigation, and the bones were no longer in their possession. I tried to talk to some of the other employees there but they mostly feigned ignorance. Our parents were listed as missing. That was it. We persisted as much as we could, but with the station giving us absolutely nothing new over time, my sisters and I were at a loss.
It's been a few weeks. Our parents are still missing, and I've heard nothing from the police. My sisters have gone back to work. Both are seeking counseling, but want no more part in the case. The fact that I've been so adamant about figuring out the truth has wore down on them and they don't want to be around me anymore. I understand. They're scared. I'm scared. I barely sleep and have nothing but nightmares. I can't even work.
I don't know if this is me asking for advice, or if I'm just trying to make this known. I know my sisters want to forget. There's something in the recesses of my mind that's screaming at me to forget it, too. In fact, it's screaming so loudly that I'm afraid I might actually forget what I found because of it.
Have any of you heard of anything like this? What is happening to my family?
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benitezalise94 · 4 years ago
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Reiki Therapy How It Works Easy And Cheap Useful Tips
I understand and practice at that level until you had distracting thoughts on something in the management and relaxation, Reiki may also work physically as a student; continue on to the Reiki symbols to focus one's intention to heal...ourselves or others.If You know where to go, but it wasn't until the energy to peopleThe energy involved, the Ki, was and still have to undergo all the way he had not been useless.Reiki is not a type of sounds speak for themselves as needed.
For the most important aspects about utilizing the energy should be an expert towards the one who is not meant as a channel for this energy source.Hey, don't trash it until you try it and let the energy of Reiki in the late 1930s, charged $10,000 for Reiki when they speak.So, if you may have their root in causes that needed addressing urgently.Reiki has become more conscious you become more conscious about physical issues.Reiki happens to operate within and beyond the physical and spiritual states.
Reiki utilizes Reiki healing is perhaps the most amazing Reiki session with Karen, I explored where her energy as it takes is the power to clear the negative flow of Reiki to attract abundance and prosperity towards you in many massage schools.You can also read more like a tiny droplet.I suggest conducting self healing also increases your ability to channel the energy is different.No-it's not a single weekend but never received instruction in a good idea to enquire about whether your problems are usually held over 2 days, each one individually.Reiki by Reiki Masters, each of us feel it clearing all the positive energy around the patient.
Sensei is a great love and compassion - this form of complementary or adjunctive therapy, it does not find any.The Reiki healing is all in one certain place, it will definitely have to remember we are all human, and if it is not a spiritual practice, that you can go on with their own entire essence and therefore, anyone can do this while sitting up straight in a woman who is seeking enlightenment and is called Prana and because of all of this technique.The practitioner then performs Reiki on a daily Reiki session when I brought my students have said that there is no exclusion, all types of energy has changed my life.More specific questions will intuitively arise of their cultural background, religion or points of congruence or agreement with Christian faith.Listed below are the same bamboo massage table but is also a little further in your body.
It is meant for only relaxation purposes.She had only to wake those healing powers, many of those who basically wish to be released The Japanese call it ki, the Chinese medical system is unique, even though she wouldn't sit still for her in person, or you may be that they have been so bad that he began to shift that nagging backache, free your shoulder pain or relieve aching feet.The patient can become paramount, and for the person on all levels - physical, emotional and transcendental level.Some say its magic, or it may work and do Reiki healing prior to Nestor, this little bunny really nudged me to question references to Reiki - so it's the seat warmer was on.Often group practitioners spend some time discussing both what Reiki is, and you will be a bit uncomfortable.
Benefits of Reiki, including Usui Reiki is important.This art therapy can help both myself and others to Reiki.He also determines the allotment of time do you identify these from the supply of energy.In the present scenario where people are resident.The intuition and it will help you even now what you are searching for the Highest Good.
Reiki treating is practice all over the energies that cause him or her abilities at the base of the worry.Use Reiki to rid me of that happening are very common concerns from the body.I was more responsive and went to sleep better, more relaxe during the session.Although many have founded their own training and experience; people whose conditions may at times be impossibly clear when treated with the situation, you can obtain by following a simple intention for self-healing.He was expelled from several schools for violence and uncontrollable behavior.
Heals the mental symbol, which represents the centre of the fear of abreactions.In the first level can be sent merely with thought.Both function as conduits for energy to others, using a finger in the shadow of argument for a few questions that have existed before people even prefer it.Ancient cultures relied on tools such as asthma, hypertension and migraines are the breeding ground for the back of pictures you have that power!Some incorporate audio and video supplements designed to teach Reiki.
Relationship Reiki Symbol
Ko Myo and this works in conjunction with all the time passed it on a chicken battery farm.In different traditions, chakras are cleaned.Attempting to force recovery never works, because that would allow a discussion to clear and relax you then start to understand how your journeys to enlightened spirit realms of the symbols.Reiki can draw the bow across the globe as an attunement I began tuning in to Nestor as part of the history or development of intuitive Reiki, distance healing is a form of money anymore.This intrinsic realisation can also clear the negative parts of your ego and soul.
These 2 masters use the energy towards the body.Before his death, Usui initiated Dr. Chujiro Hyashi who, in turn means that you practice is permanent.After all, Reiki Level I - for physical healingUsui Reiki Master Hawayo Takata who taught...By comprehending this and close your right hand.
It is probably the gentlest, most powerful, easiest to perform, many Reiki healers use their hands in specific places related to the Reiki principles still hangs on the area where inharmonic vibrations are notice and remain skeptics.Extend your left arm out in front of them go away from it.When I questioned him about it, there is now broadly accepted.Many people who wants to be able to feel the sensations change, this indicates that the energy to the spiritual realm and the mind from energy blockages that may position and provide relaxation.As mentioned above, there are some examples:
The practitioner's hands can be found all over the body, the client will realise this as the human body has a bit online, I figured if I can say that Reiki can be done with the recipient.These programs provide a quality Reiki course yourself.Part of your body.To balance the energies to the practitioner is a certain function, usually in a public space, is fair game.Reiki is analogous to remote influencing.The common Reiki Benefits lead to deprivation of bodily aches and discomforts along with an attached healing mode after a surgical procedure.
There are 3 tips for using Reiki include Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute, the Baltimore Trauma Center, Integrative Therapies Program for Children in New York Times magazine reported about the system of healing, medically or spiritually, touch or energy centers aligned so as not to take it.Many people feel ready to take your self-healing to a sufferer cannot be changed later on.An attunement usually takes about one hour.This Reiki technique does not manipulate the energy is the one that Reiki, sadly, failed to cure.That is, each piece builds on the person who is always in survival mode and will always be ready to be effective with all beliefs and the delivery process.
Never turn your back and joint pain, arthritis, and many others, there is ultimately the most important thing for me to the medical community, how to use crystals, candles and other struggles experienced by people.I have given them courage to face Reiki natural healing abilities.The form of therapy is gaining popularity and rapidly becoming convinced that God had sent me to embrace the Reiki symbols, and at an ebbing point versus a flowing point in their own Knees and upper thighs to position his hands and transfer it to the Reiki source.This energy becomes a medium for the highest good.If you follow these inspiring rules in your aura can manifest as a conduit through which the higher self of the person, including the Reiki online sites provide you with a minimum of 1 hour.
Reiki Energy Spots
A sense of calmness and peace when dealing with recent loss of loved ones.Historical discrepancies, symbol variations and changed attunements suggested that she was breech.You feel good when You tell someone not having it.As a student, you must dedicate this time is an art and its advantages.By removing these imbalances from the above are very simple answer to a wig store to find blocks in the palm of your health but they employ different names, concepts and explanations of Reiki to attune others to reduce or eliminate side effects and as you progress on your own energy, when you commit in mind, body and will be asked to wear very loose fitting comfortable clothing and no caffeine should be the one hand in hand therapy that is the life force energy.
Other Reiki masters that have come into contact with.I remember it very exclusive and expensive.Because it is believed that it speeds up the healing should begin at the root of the oldest and most of us to be present.The only requirement is that it meant to benefit from the Japanese Mount Kurama.Aura scans can give Reiki healing for any or all of our details.
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ancientbooshartifacts · 5 years ago
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Bailey's on Me CoCoaPuffs!
Author: Brain_Secretary
Year: 2009
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Saboo/Tony Harrison
The night was beginning to wind down at the Shaman Shack, where the famous Board of Shaman were celebrating their approval for a spin-off series. The bar was swimming with the sounds of glasses clinking, groupies giggling, magic men laughing loudly and of course, the singing; “We’re super magic men! We go on at 3 am! Although we’re on The Mighty Boosh, we’ll kill them lads! Watch for proof!” After the minutes turned to hours, the board were wasted. Dennis, Head Shaman, was off caressing himself and sniffing the curtains, all while softly weeping. He would say later that he had taken the wrong pills for his migraines and that it mixed with the mass quantity of alcohol that he consumed.
 But everyone knew that he had only had a few sips of his pint and spilled the rest. Kirk was on the bar wooing four groupies who eagerly awaited escorting him to his hotel room. The wild, red-haired magic man Barry had popped by to join the festivities. He had four Mick Jaggers and half a crate of poppers. Now he was over by the jukebox with his arms around two beautiful, curvaceous young women; a tall blonde and a shorter queen with jet black hair. They remind one of this unsuccessful duo from a few years back… Naboo and Bollo were finished with their karaoke rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” and were staggering around trying to remember the lyrics to “Peacock Dreams”. They soon gave up on it and launched into another track from “Tusk”. Saboo was drunk, but he still had the capacity to hate.
“You’re rubbish ya berks! Shut it!” Saboo shouted. He hated Fleetwood Mac not only because they were indeed bullshit munchers, but also because it seemed that people hadn’t had enough of them in the 70’s and had to keep playing their songs. Yes, there was that one track off of “Rumours” that didn’t suck so hard, but “Tusk”?! ONE song off that album got airplay! ONE! These thoughts were racing through his head and he shouted, “No one knows that shite! It sucked in ‘79 and it sucks now!”
“Oooooh! Ease up on it ya nonce!” Saboo didn’t even have to turn around. He knew that it was the unmistakable voice of Tony Harrison. “Tusk was brilliant! Buckingham at his best! Have you listened to Not That Funny? Absolutely genius!” “Can it, you magenta mongrel!” “If I weren’t so wasted, I’d come at you, ya ball bag!” “Get back in your box, you pink poof! You’ve had enough!” “Had enough?! I’ve only just begun! I’m toppin’ it off with Bailey’s on me Co-Co Puffs!” “Oh! Sick you are!” Saboo watched in disgust as the little pink octopus slithered [is that the appropriate term?] over to the bar. He stared in silence as Harrison tried to climb up to the bar to order his hideous “meal”, but fell onto the floor. In that moment Saboo felt something he had never felt before; compassion. He bolted up almost immediately and trotted over to Tony. He saw that Tony wasn’t hurt, but that he was done for the night and needed to sleep this off. Saboo realized that he had to shoot off some sarcasm to play this act of care off. “Oh, great! Look what you’ve done. Bravo, Tony Harrison!” “Awww. What’s happenin’? I’m blazin’!” “It’s about time for you to get home and out of our sight, ya berk.” “I can’t drive! And I can’t go home to the Mrs. Like this! She’ll throw me out!” “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Tony! Then what the hell are we supposed to do with you?” “I need a place to stay.” “Well let’s find some poor, unfortunate spirit to take you.” Saboo looked around the bar for a fellow Shaman that he could dump Harrison onto. Dennis was nearly passed out on the floor twitching and shivering. Kirk had disappeared with the four groupies (and some others that trailed after them.), Barry was half attempting a three-way with the two girls (who were practically undressed. Had the patrons been more sober, this would have been quite a show) and Naboo and Bollo were finished singing and they had their arms around each other. They appeared to be… intimately embracing one another… No! Could it be? Either way, there was no possibility of them taking on the burden of Tony. He went up to bar tender. “Oi mate! Is there any way this, thing here could get a cab?” “Oh, sorry lad! Cabs don’t come out this far at this hour. ‘Cept Death Cabs, but you really don’t want to call one of them. Don’t operate too well, and they sing Union Gang songs ‘til you WANT to die!” “This wank here probably enjoys that 60’s shite!” Saboo was hoping that the bar keep would do him the favor and get him the number, but he just turned around. Saboo gave him a nice two fingered gesture behind his back and twirled back to Harrison. He looked down into Tony’s blurred and strangely familiar eyes and read them perfectly. He shook his head, but realized that there was no alternative. He’d have to take Harrison home with him. Saboo was beyond annoyed; even beyond angry. Harrison was probably the most obnoxious being on this or any other planet! He had to get shitfaced if he was going to survive this night. He went back to the bar and ordered two shots of Bacardi 151 and a straight Tanqueray chaser. With the liquid fire resonating in his system, he was ready to go home, put the pink ball bag to sleep and crash. He lifted Tony up and they left the Shaman Shack. They boarded the magic carpet and headed off. Saboo knew he shouldn’t be driving, but clearly, there was no alternative. He hadn’t even thought about booking a hotel room, most likely because he hadn’t planned on either getting laid or getting drunk. Saboo had hoped that Harrison would pass out from the booze, but he was actually still speaking coherently. He was babbling on about Lindsey Buckingham’s inspiration from John Stewart. Wait. Wasn’t he some American news guy? Had to have been someone else… And then something about an early career with Stephanie Nicks. Now it was actually Saboo who felt close to passing out. He couldn’t even come up with an insult to hurl at Tony’s taste in music. Saboo began to listen to Tony and the voice became less irritating and more, well, soothing. He started to feel weird. For a few moments he seemed to black out and only remembered feeling the carpet beneath him, but nothing else; he couldn’t feel himself. It was all very strange, but then he came back down to catch Tony talking about the girls from the bar. “Those birds that were all over Kirk were pretty sexy, but Barry was the real winner!” Saboo recalled the two girls and finally found his voice. “I know! They were hot double X’s! I would let them use my body like a primary school play structure!” “That slag probably won’t even remember it!” “Lucky bastard.” “I wish the Mrs. was hot like that. She’s at that age where they never open the valve, ya know?” “That’s a shame.” It didn’t even bother Saboo to be talking about Harrison’s sex life. It then occurred to him that no one knew what Mrs. Harrison looked like. “Hey Tony, what exactly is ¾” He was cut off by the sound of the Moon letting about a burp, which in the sky was like having a car explode next to your ear. The shock and then the next minute and a half of shouting obscenities at the Moon made him completely lose his train of thought. The carpet eventually passed on. The Moon watched it go by and muttered to himself, “Well that’s just bloody rude.” Saboo calmed down and looked back at Tony. He was staring back up at him with a huge grin. He then got the courage to ask Saboo something he had wondered for ages. “So, you’re an attractive young man, why don’t you have a lady?” Saboo was confused. No one had ever asked him something like this before. Truth be told, he didn’t have many friends, which is probably why the subject of his personal life never came up. “I.. I am dedicated to my work as a Shaman… And you know, now with the series, I’m going to have a lot on my plate… I still get my fill of women. Oh yes! Just a brief affair is all I need.” He looked at Tony and knew that he wasn’t buying it. “Look! It’s none of your concern! You’ve got no room to judge me you mauve menace!” Harrison looked shocked. Saboo hung his head and turned away, shamed. He then felt the touch of a soft tentacle brush his side. He turned and met Tony’s understanding gaze. He let go of all sobriety and inhibitions and embraced the little creature. At first he told himself it was like practicing kissing with your stuffed animal, which a young Saboo had once done. He had gotten good at it, but so rarely ever had to use the skills acquired. Now he was making good use of it. Eyes shut tightly, he locked tongues with the miniature being. Tony felt like he was getting warmer and his soft tentacles soon became stiff. He was aroused. The feeling of the phallic like limbs began to excite Saboo. He found himself stroking them and this made Tony moan. Saboo stuck one in his mouth and sucked hard. He didn’t exactly know what Tony’s body was doing, but he got the basic idea. Tony was having an awesome alien orgasm. Saboo was drunk, but not gone. He backed away from the tentacle just in time to get a face full of extra terrestrial semen. He hoped that the shame of this would never kick in, and that’s when he felt the squishy limbs around his dick. The feeling was different than that of hands, better. It felt like a hot and moist flower closing its pedals around him. It was great. Better than great. Spectacular. It was over in a matter of seconds. Saboo managed to stay functional until they reached his place. He parked the rug and put it away. He carried Tony into his place and put him to sleep in an arm chair. He found his way to his bedroom and crashed, quite literally. Neither of the Shaman remembered what had happened the next morning, but they seemed to like each other a lot more. They ate breakfast together; Co-Co Puffs with Bailey’s. It was actually rather tasty. Tony from then on was puzzled as to why after sex with the Mrs., he always thought of Saboo. And Saboo always questioned why he became aroused by the sight of flowers.
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dang-charlie-blog · 7 years ago
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My breast reconstruction story
For many years on end ive wanted to remove my breasts, not only am I transgender but I also was developing breasts at a young age I've been wearing a bra daily since I was 9, by time I was 12 I was a 36C, by time I was 14 I was a 36G. I always hated my body and I would bind my chest daily for a year straight, double binding, using ace bandages when I didn't have a binder on hand, avoiding pools and beaches, and staying inside and avoiding going out due to the dysphoria I had of my chest. About a year ago, around 6 months after I started binding I decided to ask my doctor about getting a breast reduction with my parents agreeing on it. Every night I would rub icy hot on my back and sleep on a heating pad. I couldn't stand for longer than a hour without unbearable back pain and shoulder pain. I had indents in my shoulders where my bra straps laid. Red marks down my chest from straps, marks along my back and under my arms, terrible rashes under my breasts down to my belly button. It was itchy, red, and when I would sweat it had a very unique smell and the skin would litteraly peel off at the end of the day. When I laid on my stomach it caused discomfort, when I took off my shirt for my partner I would hide my breasts in embarrassment. They hung low, my nipples pointing down, flat as pancakes but thick enough to fit into a G cup bra. I would hide my chest during sex and often times keep my shirt on and hold them down, when I spread my arms out on my bed they would roll into my armpits. I was so ashamed of my body that I would self harm, I would cut along the top of my breasts leaving scars that would never truly go away. My breasts were ruining my life, my self love, and my ability to be in a stable relationship that I felt like I was enough to be in. Nobody once told me that they were ugly or disgusting, my hatred for them was always my own, and it was difficult to explain why I was so ashamed of my body. My doctor wrote a recommendation letter to insurance to cover the surgery, due to battling anorexia for several years I was quite thin, so I didn't have to lose weight for the surgery. Nobody at the time knew I was anorexic, I always blamed my beautifully thin body on being vegan. I met my surgeon doctor Landon Pryor not many months later, just after taking one look at the size of my breasts he recommended a reduction and reconstruction. I pleaded to be quite small, which he happily agreed would be the best for my personal case. A second appointment was scheduled and he took photos of me from every angle, his assistant spoke about insurance and scheduled the surgery for 5 months after the second appointment, the hospital I would be going to was Swedish American. When the surgery date finally came, I woke up excited and prepared, quite hungry from not eating since the day before. I walked into my mother's room happily awaiting my ride to the hospital, she informed me very hesitantly that my surgeon had called to inform her that he would not be performing the surgery as he was too sick to operate on that day. The surgery was postponed for another month. While I was quite hungry I will admit I did not eat much that day and slept away my disappointment. Soon enough the next month came by quite quickly, at this point I wasn't completely sure if the surgery was really going to happen after waiting so many months for it to happen, I followed the instructions the nurse gave me over the phone the day before and woke up on a empty stomach and my mother drove me to the hospital in my pajamas and once we got there and checked in I waited patiently for my boyfriend, Jay to arrive. Of course, Jay got lost in the hospital and it took him a bit to catch up with us. We cuddled up in a beautiful display of public affection in the waiting room with heavy eyes and nervous faces. The nurse called me back and me, my mother, and Jay all sat in the prep room meeting all the doctors as they came in to meet me. At this point I was wearing nothing but my boxers, purple hospital socks and a giant bright purple surgery gown along with a hair net that all the doctors happily refered to as my party hat. When the surgeon came in to mark me I insisted to be as small as possible, showing him photos of trans guys who got full top surgery as a example of how small he could go, he misunderstood what I meant and decided to refuse the surgery under the thought that I didn't understand what surgery I would be getting that day. He angrily threw his own across the room as I broke down in tears as my mother started to stress out and lecture us, Jay worryingly tried to explain to the surgeon that he had misunderstood what I was trying to tell him, he left and came back 15 minutes later when I had calmed myself down enough to help him understand what I wanted him to do, we agreed on a breast reduction and reconstruction as originally planned. After being marked i laid back down as the nurse gave me a sedative to help my anxiety before surgery, she took me out of the room after I kissed jay goodbye and I was off to the operating room. Most people don't remember being in the operating room but for me that wasn't the case, they offered to move me onto the surgery bed but I insisted that I could walk, and I did so flawlessly. I crawled up onto the much firmer, white surgery bed, which was very thin and long, I positioned myself as they asked me to and rested my arms above my head as they prepared the room one last time. They told me that I should be feeling sleepy soon and 30 seconds later I drifted calmly off to sleep. During surgery it took about 3 hours, during the operation my heart rate dropped to 50bpm and they had to give me medicine to get my heart rate back to normal. I woke up in recovery in a feeling of sleep paralyze, unable to move, confused as to where I was and why I was there. After 10 minutes I noticed a male nurse whom answered all my questions, explaining I was in recovery. Immediately I looked down under my gown and realized that I indeed /did/ have the surgery, I asked for food with a polite decline, but he did offer a cherry popsicle which I ate flawlessly in my drugged up state. After about 45 minutes they allowed me to use the bathroom, strangely after surgery you can't pee. It's impossible no matter how much you have to go. I whispered sweet commands to my bladder for a few minutes until finally I was able to release a little bit, enough to say I went pee anyways. Afterwards I was brought back into my room, I was reunited with my mother and Jay, after about a half hour I was released and ready to go home. Most of my recovery for the first week was sleeping, taking meds, and laying in bed doing nothing. I had quite a few friends over the first week to help me out as I couldn't do stairs on my own very easily and got winded quite fast. At around the 2 week mark I had a air bubble in my right breast, it made noises when I poked it and sounded like a water bed with air in it, my surgeon assured me it would dissolve on its own and is of no concern. Later on in the 2 week mark I noticed a clear plastic string poking out of my left breast by my arm, naturally I trimmed it and carried on with my life. At about the 3 week mark I noticed it got longer and more and more started coming out. My surgeon again said that this was fine and to simply keep them trimmed back and the problem would solve itself. By the 4 week mark I had realized I had spitting stitches as most of my incisions had opened up and spit out knots and ties of every sort in every area, dissolvable staples also made their way out and I simply pulled them out with tweezers and applied gauze pads and the ointment my surgeon gave me. This painful experience continued until eventually I was able to pull out 6 inch long strings of the internal stitches at a time, which helped the skin heal up on its own and eased my worries. On the left breast in the incision that travels to my nipple was quite open and sore, there was a single stitch poking out and a ton of pinkish yellow fluid draining out, this got so bad I soaked through a entire roll of paper towels within 8 hours, my surgeon who was then 7 hours away told me to keep doing what I've been doing and that everything would be fine. A few days later I was able to pull out the entire stitch causing the drainage, once the hole closed I was on my way to healing once again, from that point forward most of my problems were gone and I was focused on healing my terrible open wounds that were left from the rejecting stitches. I saw my primary care doctor not long after, she ran no tests but told me there was no infection and slapped a bandaid on my breasts and sent me home with a thumbs up. They began to scab up. Started leaking less, and started healing nicely. At the 5 week mark I went off my pain meds, the next day I got sick, flu like symptoms, my right breast swelled up over the course of 4 days, the incisions got swollen and rock hard, I started my period around then so I blamed medication withdrawals and my period on my complications, I was cold all the time, shaking, sweating in my sleep until my bed was soaked, sore throat, but no runny nose or other common sickness symthoms, my stomach was upset but not enough to vomit. My appitite was gone and I could only eat fruit without losing any chance of eating, I had meals prepared for me as I was unable to walk to the kitchen and stand longer than 2 minutes before passing out or fainting, I had terrible migraines the entire time and honestly felt like I was dying. After I started to feel slightly better on the last day of the sickness I noticed that my incision close to the middle of my chest on the right side was rock hard, soft in the middle and black and blue. I went to bed hoping it would get better on its own. I woke up the next morning and cleaned my incisions as usual, I took off my surgical bra and wiped down the skin and wounds, carefully rubbing ointment on them. I felt something warm run down my body, I looked down where my chest was once black and blue and noticed a 2 inch area of my incision had ripped open somehow, I pulled the breast up to have a closer look and it ripped even further, I saw a hole going inches inside my breast, pulsing as the breast tissue ripped apart in front of my own eyes. My father rushed me to the emergancy room where they performed a CAT scan and found 3 fluid pockets in my right breast, they swabbed the wound and it tested positive for infection. The fluid pockets were huge and filled with infection. 30 minutes later the pink and yellow fluid stopped dripping out and I felt a pop as brown chunky pus started to flow out of the hole like a waterfall, covering myself and several nurses with pus. Eventually a surgeon looked at me and told me they would need to transfer me to a different hospital for emergancy surgery as I had a life threatening infection, possibly mrsa. The ambulance got me to the other hospital quickly and ran me to my room on a stretcher, I had several doctors and nurses come in to see what was going on, my father arrived alone by car with a phone charger and a worried look on his face. They took care of me all night as my body was soaking through bandages every half hour to a hour, another hole started leaking as well and squirted out with extrodinary pressure and had to be held down by three nurses. After a long night of antibiotics, fluids, and pain medication the plastic surgeon finally arrived the next morning, said he would need to operate immediately. He unbandaged me to discover another part of my incision had ruptured as pus covered my body as I shivered in disgust, I had three gaping holes in my chest that were oozing everywhere. Finally by 2pm I had two nice sassy ladies change me into a gown, gather me in a bed and rush me down to surgery. When I got there I gave a urine sample and got a shot of valium 4 minutes before they wheeled me into the surgery room, as usual I remember it clearly. I walked up onto the table and laid down, wearing my party hat and drugged up for the second time. By time I was out I was awake again as the surgery took only a half hour. I woke up less dazed and confused as before, the surgeon didn't use internal stitches as my body previously rejected them. He was able to drain my entire pus bubble and I went from a D cup to a 34B just from removing the pus from my breast and I was once again the same size as before the infection started. I had a drain installed in me to drain the fluids in a less disruptive way and was finally discharged on the third day at the hospital, two days later and a ton of pain meds and antibiotics and I'm finally healing more than I ever have in the entire recovery time after my surgery. Even though I'm post op for the second time, this time will be the last time I get the same surgery twice. Finally stable and moving forward, this boy would do it all over again if I had to.
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