zephyrsobsessions

[zephyrsobsessions]

[zephyrsobsessions]

Wright Memorial, North Carolina, USA

[zephyrsobsessions]

[zephyrsobsessions]

y'all know that whole left-brained/right-brained thing is fake right? and the "brain fully develops at age 25" thing? and the "we only use 10% of our brains" thing? yeah they're all complete horseshit please yell at anyone who says them

[zephyrsobsessions]

Got a free chocolate fountain. I love college.

[zephyrsobsessions]

I have been thinking a lot about what a cancer diagnosis used to mean. How in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when someone was diagnosed, my parents would gently prepare me for their death. That chemo and radiation and surgery just bought time, and over the age of fifty people would sometimes just. Skip it. For cost reasons, and for quality of life reasons. My grandmother was diagnosed in her early seventies and went directly into hospice for just under a year — palliative care only. And often, after diagnosis people and their families would go away — they’d cash out retirement or sell the house and go live on a beach for six months. Or they’d pay a charlatan all their savings to buy hope. People would get diagnosed, get very sick, leave, and then we’d hear that they died.

And then, at some point, the people who left started coming back.

It was the children first. The March of Dimes and Saint Jude set up programs and my town would do spaghetti fundraisers and raffles and meal trains to support the family and send the child and one parent to a hospital in the city — and the children came home. Their hair grew back. They went back to school. We were all trained to think of them as the angelic lost and they were turning into asshole teens right in front of our eyes. What a miracle, what a gift, how lucky we are that the odds for several children are in our favor!

Adults started leaving for a specific program to treat their specific cancer at a specific hospital or a specific research group. They’d stay in that city for 6-12 months and then they’d come home. We fully expected that they were still dying — or they’d gotten one of the good cancers. What a gift this year is for them, we’d think. How lucky they are to be strong enough to ski and swim and run. And then they didn’t stop — two decades later they haven’t stopped. Not all of them, but most of them.

We bought those extra hours and months and years. We paid for time with our taxes. Scientists found ways for treatment to be less terrible, less poisonous, and a thousand times more effective.

And now, when a friend was diagnosed, the five year survival odds were 95%. My friend is alive, nearly five years later. Those kids who miraculously survived are alive. The adults who beat the odds are still alive. I grew up in a place small enough that you can see the losses. And now, the hospital in my tiny hometown can effectively treat many cancers. Most people don’t have to go away for treatment. They said we could never cure cancer, as it were, but we can cure a lot of cancers. We can diagnose a lot of cancers early enough to treat them with minor interventions. We can prevent a lot of cancers.

We could keep doing that. We could continue to fund research into other heartbreaks — into Long Covid and MCAS and psych meds with fewer side effects and dementia treatments. We could buy months and years, alleviate the suffering of our neighbors. That is what funding health research buys: time and ease.

Anyway, I’m preaching to the choir here. But it is a quiet miracle what’s happened in my lifetime.

[zephyrsobsessions]

"everyone suddenly seems really stupid and aggressive" its brain damage from covid

"im sick all the time now and everyone at work is sick all the time" its immune system damage from covid

"im sick again, but i tested and its not covid haha" its still probably covid, rapid covid tests have been estimated at 30% positive accuracy by researchers who are factoring in strain mutation and user error

"no one can drive anymore, what happened" its brain damage from covid

"why am i suddenly mentally ill" its brain damage from covid

"i started feeling weak, breathless, confused, distracted, irritable and in pain but it was a while after i got covid so its not long covid" long covid sets in a random number of months after your covid infection and also asymptomatic covid can cause it

"ive still never gotten covid, isnt that great" unless you are an undiscovered genetic freak (possible) or youve been living in a clean room, you have had a covid infection. it may have been asymptomatic

"im sick but its from blood clots, heart disease, asthma, nerve damage, narcolepsy, etc" covid attacks the entire body and can cause all of these things as downstream effects

"ive already had covid so i probably have pretty good immunity by now" covid does not work like this. the more times you are infected, the more permanently injured you will become, and the more vulnerable to further covid infections and infections of all other viruses and bacteria

"ive been vaccinated so im safe" covid does not work like this. vaccination lowers your likelihood of developing severe infection, it does not protect you from contracting the virus

"well what am i supposed to do" wear a mask

[zephyrsobsessions]

[zephyrsobsessions]

Honestly not being a killjoy, but do we have photos on what the protests were like in Republican territory? That seems more significant than the numbers in liberal zones like DC/NYC/Boston/Portland/Philly/etc.

[zephyrsobsessions]

I HAVE!!!! IT'S SO FUNNY!!!!

Biscuits N’ Porn

Nags Head, North Carolina, USA

[zephyrsobsessions]

#ROASTED

[zephyrsobsessions]

Yes!! Wasn't expecting it to be 0.4% yes woah! I decided to learn it one day and just... Did. It's actually pretty easy!

Can you do the really loud whistle with your fingers?

[zephyrsobsessions]

The worst thing you can do, as someone who has recently realised they are transfem, is to let terves and transphobes convince you cis women will never accept you.

I was told that when I came out everyone would reject me. That I would find myself isolated from the world, and from other women especially, who would react to me with horror and revulsion.

In reality, within the first months of coming out, in no particular order:

My sister's reaction on my coming out was, "Right, so I have a sister instead of a brother. Cool. I'm taking you clothes shopping tomorrow."

A friend, when she learned I am a woman, immediately invited me to her women-only, girls-night-out birthday party the following week.

Another friend, when a friend of hers expressed doubts about my gender, immediately shut them down and reaffirmed I am a woman.

I went camping with a group of friends, and we had two tents, one for the boys and one for the girls; I was unsure as to which I should enter, to which a girl friend responded by grabbing me and physically dragging me inside the women's tent.

In the women's bathroom at a movie theatre a random woman, whom I'd never seen before and haven't seen since, stopped me as I was going into a stall, to warn me there was no toilet paper in there, because she'd just used the last of it.

All of these, and more, some from friends, some from complete strangers. All within a few months, as a trans woman who hadn't started medical transition yet, and was very visible as being a trans woman.

I've had some people reject me, true, but the vast majority, including almost all cis women, accepted me as a sister with open arms.

Cis women are cool. It's terves who are bigots.

[zephyrsobsessions]

I'll be posting this on both of my accounts, but I'm going to be taking a break from Tumblr for a bit. I'm doomscrolling and it's not what I need right now. With everything that's going on with my cat right now, and being so far away, I can't let myself fall into an even worse headspace. There will be no more art for a while, at least until I get home in mid May. Sorry about that. I know I haven't been very active on here in general, and I apologize for that as well. Maybe when I come back I'll make an effort to post some stuff here again, but I just do not have it in me when I could possibly lose my cat. I hope y'all understand. Take care. 💚

[zephyrsobsessions]

everyone make sure to set out cheese & crackers for neil tonight <3