Better day today. Broad spectrum support, narrowing sensitivity to pick out the big guns, better blood pressure, better appetite, better awakeness. I am less of a sobbing mess and a little more open to the possibility that I might not be about to lose everything.
Transplant doctor is impressed with the improvement. We’ll keep working on stability, then back to the gradual rebuild
Better day today. Broad spectrum support, narrowing sensitivity to pick out the big guns, better blood pressure, better appetite, better awakeness. I am less of a sobbing mess and a little more open to the possibility that I might not be about to lose everything.
Study: Leaded gas caused American adults to lose 825M IQ points. Leaded gas was banned in 1996, but exposure to the poison cost Americans born before then several IQ points on average, researchers estimated.
Things you must know about Hantavirus [USMLE Quick Review] Orthohantavirus is a genus of single-stranded, enveloped, negative-sense RNA viruses in the family Hantaviridae within the order Bunyavirales. Members of this genus may be called orthohantaviruses or simply hantaviruses. Orthohantaviruses typically cause chronic asymptomatic infection in rodents.
Cancer starts when cells begin to grow out of control. Cells in nearly any part of the body can become cancer, and can spread to other areas.
Multiple myeloma is a cancer of plasma cells. Normal plasma cells are found in the bone marrow and are an important part of the immune system. The immune system is made up of several types of cells that work together to fight infections and other diseases. Lymphocytes (lymph cells) are one of the main types of white blood cells in the immune system and include T cells and B cells. Lymphocytes are in many areas of the body, such as lymph nodes, the bone marrow, the intestines, and the bloodstream.
When B cells respond to an infection, they mature and change into plasma cells. Plasma cells make the antibodies (also called immunoglobulins) that help the body attack and kill germs. Plasma cells, are found mainly in the bone marrow. Bone marrow is the soft tissue inside bones. In addition to plasma cells, normal bone marrow is also the home for other blood cells such as red cells, white cells, and platelets.
In general, when plasma cells become cancerous and grow out of control, this is called multiple myeloma. The plasma cells make an abnormal protein (antibody) known by several different names, including monoclonal immunoglobulin, monoclonal protein (M-protein), M-spike, or paraprotein.
NOTE: In a new intelligence assessment, the CIA has ruled out that the mysterious symptoms known as Havana Syndrome are the result of a sustained global campaign by a hostile power aimed at hundreds of U.S. diplomats and spies.
People who have experienced possible Havana Syndrome symptoms and have been briefed on the assessment have expressed deep disappointment to this CIA’s findings.
Starting in late 2016, U.S. diplomats and spies serving in Cuba began reporting bizarre sounds and sensations followed by unexplained illnesses and symptoms, including hearing and vision loss, memory and balance problems, headaches and nausea.
Over the years (including recently), many hundreds of U.S. officials have come forward reporting suspected incidents in more than a dozen countries.
University of Connecticut bioengineers have used piezoelectric biodegradable nanofiber tissue scaffold technology to successfully regrow cartilage directly in a rabbit’s knee, an achievement that could represent a promising hop toward healing joints and treating disorders such as osteoarthritis, in humans.
The team, headed by UConn bioengineer Thanh Nguyen, PhD, implanted a biodegradable piezoelectric poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) nanofiber tissue scaffold into the knee of rabbits with major cartilage defects. The polymer effectively acts as a battery-less electrical stimulator, which generates a tiny burst of electric current when subjected to force—for example, when the rabbit walked or hopped. This charge promoted cell colonization and growth into the cartilage of the test animals. Encouragingly, rabbits treated using the piezoelectric scaffold implant in combination with 1–2 months of treadmill exercise demonstrated completely healed cartilage.
A new type of diagnostic blood test has been shown to accurately detect cancer in patients with non-specific symptoms, such as unexplained weight loss and fatigue, as well as differentiating between patients with localized and metastatic disease.
This makes it the first blood-based cancer test to determine the metastatic status of a cancer without prior knowledge of the primary cancer type.
In a study published this week in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, researchers from the University of Oxford analyzed blood samples from 300 patients with non-specific but concerning symptoms of cancer using a technique called nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics.
Unlike conventional blood-based tests for cancer, which look for genetic material from tumors, the NMR-based technique uses magnetic field and radio waves to analyze levels of metabolites in the blood as biomarkers to distinguish between different cancer states.
I realize that I’ve been going in circle for an hour, hoping that I’ll bump into something that unlocks a solution to Anne’s suffering. Maybe there’s something in the refrigerator. Maybe there’s something on the patio. Maybe it’s between the cushions in the couch. Maybe if I walk into our bedroom and sit next to her on the bed. Maybe if I hold her hand. Maybe if I don’t hold her hand. Maybe…
I’m sorry to hear Anne had to suffer through this, that you had to experience it with her, that it took as long as it did for her to receive a proper diagnosis along with the care and treatment she needed in order to resolve her pain.
I’ve been in the same place as Anne before. I was just there, in fact. But if a friend hadn’t shared this post with me two days ago, I might not have been anyplace at alltoday.
I might not have gone to the ER in time. I might not have convinced myself that the pain in my lower left side was severe “enough”.
You see, I’m no stranger to the agony that a ruptured ovarian cyst can cause, and I’ve been on the proverbial merry-go-round at the ER numerous times in the past when I’d presented with the same symptoms.
What they’d tell me was the same each time. They’d run their battery of tests, and then invariably say there was nothing they could do. They’d tell me the cysts would go away on their own one way or another. They’d tell me to just wait it out. They’d tell me to go home and try to make myself as comfortable as possible, and to only come back if I started running a fever or if the searing pain failed to lessen within a few days.
What they neglected to tell me time after time was thatsometimesovarian cysts can actually be life-threatening.
Even without the fever.
Ovarian torsion? They’ve never mentioned this possible complication once. Maybe because they never wanted to scare me. Maybe because the complication itself is relatively rare. Only 6 out of 100,000 women will ever have one of their ovaries twist around until its literally strangled itself of all life and oxygen inside their body.
Whatever their reason was for not fully informing me, it made me adopt a really blasé attitude about my pain, to the point where I was prepared to tough it out on my own because I had been conditioned to believe that even if the pain became excruciating there was nothing the medical professionals would’ve done for me. Cysts come and cysts go is the message I had received countless times, and it’s what I firmly believed in all cases until I read this post.
Please, to all my fellow ovary-bearers, if you start experiencing blinding pain in the lower abdominal region on either the left or right side, always go the ER.Always.
Even if you routinely get ovarian cysts. Even if the doctors and nurses have previously given you the impression that it’s just ‘something that happens’ to some women sometimes. Get it checked out. Demand that they perform a pelvic ultrasound early on,especially if the pain coincides with your time of the month.I cannot tell you the number of times I have received unnecessary CT scans from male ER doctors who failed to consider that my pain was likely gynecological in nature, so please, please, please, do not let their relative unfamiliarity with the female reproductive cycle happen to you, too. Request an additional consult with an OB/GYN if they do not think to request one themselves, and always, always arrive at the ER as soon as you possibly can because you’ll likely have to wait awhile to a.) be seen and b.) get a proper diagnosis even if you do all of the above.
For me personally, it took six hours to get through the chaos of the ER two days ago. By the time they concluded I needed to be on the operating table, I had already internally hemorrhaged close to a full liter of blood.
So again, I beg you guys, if you start experiencing blinding pain in your ovary regions, always get to the ER right away. Don’t just assume it’s a bad cramp or a burst cyst that will recover on its own. If my friend hadn’t linked me to this post when she had, I know that’s what I would’ve done and I’d probably be dead right now because of it.
Always listen to your body, you guys, seek the help you need, and spread awareness when you can to possibly save a life. I’m down a lot of blood and part of my left ovary had to be removed, but I’m doing fine now. I’m so thankful I’m doing fine now. My ovary didn’t kill me and I couldn’t be happier to be alive.
For the first time in my life, I’m tempted to become one of those people who like, send nice cards to their doctor’s office.
It’s so completely the opposite of my whole energy. I’m not actually going to do it I don’t think. Just the idea of sending someone a greeting card usually gives me crippling anxiety. And I’ve already repeatedly told my doctor and his secretary how awesome they both are.
But. This. Fucking. Office. Do you know how rare it is to find a doctor who will even take your medical issues halfway fucking seriously when you’re fat & mentally ill and full of mysterious autoimmune symptoms?
Let alone one who listens to me intently and respectfully and takes my issues with those things even more seriously than I do?
Do you know how rare it is to find a secretary who will go out of her way to contact me on my terms when I need to schedule a sick visit because I’m having a depressive episode? Like, I’m usually relieved if a secretary just doesn’t fuck with my appointment times in super obnoxious ways at the last minute. This is next level.
These people are gems and I just feel like they should have a visual reminder of that fact to pin up on their wall and look a every day. I am not the sort of person who has this thought process under normal circumstances but this. Fucking. Office.
Another early morning trip to Lund, though to a different part of the university medical complex this time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ No sedation or invasive procedures this time, just getting my eyes peered into yet again and discussing the prospect of more in the near future.
Had just escaped here, and was feeling just about as pleased as I looked. Pretty sure that was an attempt at Neutral Face, btw.
On the plus side? This time we did only get to pay the standard 300kr/roughly $30 copay for the office visit, and not the 2000kr Special Foreign Devil Rate. They did apparently have my brand new personnummer set up in the system now, so all of this shit should be fully covered moving forward. (The High Cost Protection should have already MORE than kicked in from what we’ve paid already, so we might even get the 300kr refunded too? )
After getting checked out by two different eye surgery specialists (they only do actual surgery in Lund)–with the sinking feeling you might expect when the first one was obviously concerned enough at what she was seeing to call someone else in? Complete with another ultrasound, because that’s not worrying enough already?
Yep, looks like they were very likely wrong in Malmö last time. They want to do that damned vitrectomy, but are also not entirely sure what they will find in there once the blood is vacuumed out of the way. There may be a detached retina lurking back there too, after all. It may just be a glob of blood looking suspiciously like a detached bit of the retina. Didn’t exactly sound promising either way, as businesslike as they were about the whole mess.
(They also sounded pretty appalled that I didn’t get any laser treatments well before I did. That retina really was seriously fucked by the time they started trying to patch it together here. And I was glad enough to throw the damned NHS straight under the wheels of the bus they spent years building, if as diplomatically as I could manage.)
Oh yes, and I apparently also get a bonus lens implant while they’re in there! Because Haunted Eyeball’s latest spectacular tantrum apparently also fucked up the lens and caused a sudden cararact. Which might help explain the general level of blurriness behind the freaking swirly dark blood haze, yeah.
Again, on the plus side? No signs of glaucoma anywhere, at least. And they are apparently wanting to knock me the fuck out to do invasive things to my eyeball. They’re not sure exactly how long it will take, so want to just use general anesthesia–which they normally wouldn’t for a straightforward eyeball jelly scooping.
(OTOH, that evidently may mean a fight to get that done on a totally outpatient basis. But, it’s a massive HELL NO from me otherwise. Hard limit there, especially after that last time when I basically got held prisoner after inpatient surgery.)
At any rate, at least that bit of anticipation and dread is over. Even if the cataract came as a complete surprise. We do have a little better idea of what is happening, if not exactly when yet. They are hoping to get a slot opened up to bring me back to talk to an anesthesiologist in a couple of weeks, with surgery maybe a week after that.
So yeah, the apparent urgency doesn’t have me at all concerned, either. At least they are, indeed, going ahead and actually providing whatever treatment they are deeming fit–with actual informed consent. As on, they’re actually talking to me and not getting all pissy when I do have some questions. And I have not been lectured or snarked at one single time, about anything.
Can’t say I’m looking forward to any of what’s coming with this, other than getting it over with. Not much liking my chances of keeping anything like full vision in that eye, but here’s hoping we can indeed get at least enough back to let me drive again.
Man, I don’t know what is up with my medication but this week, I’ve just been exhausted. You’d think I worked ten 20-hour shifts in a row or something with how much I’ve been sleeping.
And it’s odd because my moods have been incredibly even. The creativity isn’t gone. The energy isn’t gone. I’ve just been super chill and nonchalant.
I even feel chill and nonchalant now, which is great. I actually really love feeling this way. I’ve had mild moments of irritation and annoyance and just needing to “step away” but nothing that was, like… totally detrimental. Yes, I’ve been feeling the pain of the news… and have had to just step away from it, which, I understand is a privilege I have, of course.
But I’ve just been so bloody tired. I am yawning all the time. I must have slept lie 18 hours yesterday - not all the way through, definitely with moments of waking up to pet the cats, use the loo, etc. And I am just not sure why this is happening.
I’m on lie Day 15 of an anti-depressant and yes, it made very tired during the first week, but last week was really good? I was going to bed early and getting up early and getting stuff done. This week I have accomplished almost nothing except some minor writing and some laundry. And it’s not for the lack of wanting to get stuff done.
I’m just always yawning to the point of eyes watering and I can easily just crawl into bed and go to sleep. It’s been very weird. I’ll have to bring it up with my doctor during next week’s appointment. I love the mood because I’ve been so even keel even with things that would normally upset me more. And I don’t feel suicidal anymore. And I feel pretty good about myself but I dunno if that’s because of last year’s declaration of self love or if the meds have anything to do with that. I evaluate myself pretty harshly and analyse my actions and words all the time but it’s not bogging me down as much as it used to and I consider that a good thing.
Ah well…
Also, despite still not having full use of my voice (it’s very husky/scratchy so I sound almost sick even though some people have said I sound sexy LMAO), I don’t have food poisoning from the Jif (I threw it out anyway) and I don’t have Covid (I did a test yesterday).
So, idk what’s wrong. Other things seem to be improving. I’m just exhausted all the time and it’s weird.
It was wonderful! For the first time in so long, I could think and write and communicate again!
But, of course, the universe laughs at my plans.
Just two days after posting that, my health began to worsen rapidly.
A week later, I found myself unable to leave bed for more than a few minutes at a time.
Over the past month, I have experienced a confusing (and frightening) array of symptoms. My body is struggling to regulate itself. The slightest bit of heat leaves me dripping sweat while the cool temperatures I used to love leave me shivering. My appetite has all but disappeared while the thirst never leaves.
Standing, or even sitting, for more than 10-15 minutes at a time is likely to leave me nauseous and shaking as the pressure builds within my head and my thoughts become harder to string together.
My limbs move of their own accord in small jerks and twitches. Electricity shoots through my appendages leaving itches that can’t be ignored but worsen if I allow myself to scratch them.
And this all seems to stem from the increased movement of my spine. My neck now pops and cracks in ways I’ve never experienced before. My back pain has been getting worse and worse. I feel things moving in my spine and it’s terrifying.
Then, about a week ago, there was a pop that was much louder and more painful than usual.
When I woke up the next day, rather than having faded overnight, the pain had worsened. Throughout the day, I took steps to care for and rest my neck to allow it to heal. But nothing helped and it felt like there was something stuck out of place.
By the time I awoke the next morning, the pain from my neck had taken over my head and been joined by a fierce nausea. The vision in my right eye had faded and I found myself struggling with basic movements due to limbs that felt too heavy and only sometimes listened to my brain.
That evening, after getting home from work, my husband helped adjust my neck. As he moved my head, there was a loud pop. When I tested my neck afterwards, the spot that had felt stuck, though still sore, felt like it was back in place.
Once the fresh wave of nausea and pain had faded, I felt so much better!
That is, until the following afternoon, when I tripped and fell, the force of which seems to have knocked things out of place again.
That was two days ago and I’ve pretty much been stuck in bed since then.
I have so many things I need to do, yet, even just typing this up has taken me most of the day because I can only type for small bursts before needing to rest again.
There’s so much more to say and I’m struggling with how to proceed from here, so I think I’ll wrap this up for now.
If you’ve reached out to me and I haven’t responded, I am so sorry. I will be responding to everyone as quickly as I am able to! I hope to respond to most messages tonight and tomorrow, though that will greatly depend on whether my body cooperates.
the thing about the “why can’t we say pregnant WOMEN instead of pregnant PEOPLE, PC gone mad!” discussion going on right now is that even the “cis ally” side is kind of not understanding why, exactly, “official” stuff about pregnancy needs to use gender neutral language.
the use of gendered language, whether in law or in company guidelines, has been used as an excuse to exclude trans people from various kinds of reproductive healthcare. there have been stories of abortion providers pointing to the use of “pregnant women” in all clinic literature to justify not giving trans men assistance. there are issues where “women’s health clinics” will refuse to accept referrals for anyone who doesn’t have “F” on their records, which of course includes many trans women. there are in turn stories of trans women being unable to access “male” prostrate cancer screening.
language in this sort of capacity needs to be as factual and neutral and carefully constructed to avoid loopholes as possible. at this stage in my life, as a non-woman capable of pregnancy, i don’t really CARE anymore if you talk casually about pregnancy as something that happens to women. but i DO care if the medical system writes out some guidelines that, in only acknowledging pregnant women as a possibility, open me up to the possibility of being denied care by transphobes who can claim they’re just following the rules.
this is a real issue for us, the gendering of health care leading to single-sex guidelines which are actively used by assholes to say “no, we only treat [gender] here”. it’s not a matter of nitpicking over everyday language; it’s about ensuring we are safe from loopholes that can be used to exploit us.
This kind of thing is something I face every time I go to seek gynecological care at my university’s “women’s” health clinic. Because I’m registered as male for housing, the student insurance is constantly trying to deny me coverage if I go there for an exam, testing, or follow ups on my birth control. I wind up having to sit around the clinic for several hours (and sometimes the whole day) while my doctors try to work around prior authorizations and outright denials of coverage.
I have a weird relationship with social media; I completely forget it exists until it’s actually important, like when a friend gets married or I need to actually update my medical stuff. Then I put everything off because I am procrastinate like you wouldn’t believe, it’s a habit I need to break if I’m going to go back to school in the near future. Crunch time is death.
Anyways, here are the updates!
New Pain Doc She was really nice and I think we connected when it comes to my pain situation and where I want to go with it/what I want to do with my life. You know - live it. She disagrees with pain doc #1 and thinks that if the pain killers I’m on right now are working, which they are, then there’s no real reason to mess with things. I know this medication and how it effects me, I know that it works and I know how to use it to manage my pain. One thing that she is concerned about is my anti-seizure medication and my pain medication being together. I’ve been on higher doses of both meds at the same time and I’m fine, so I’m not worried, but I’m behind seeing a neurologist - my twitches have been getting more frequent and more intense, reading and writing is more difficult and my memory is kinda crummy. It’s probably linked to my head injury from a few years ago, when my house randomly decided to try and kill me via basketball goal.
The 5K Training You know how I said my ribs were just a little bump in the road, but I’d be back to running soon? Yeah, that didn’t happen. Getting my ribs out of joint was actually Costochondritis and wearing a bra lasted like a day, but it was too painful to keep on. I’ve been pretty much out of commission since then; spending most of my time resting and longing for the sweet release of death. Everything hurt so much, I just couldn’t handle it. When I went to get it checked out by my doctor and he was pressing on my ribs to confirm what he suspected - that I had Costochondritis, I almost threw up because of the pain.
I’m at the point now where I think I can wear a sports bra, so I’ll try that out in a few days (it has been awful weather change central here) and pick up some running shoes/clothes from Walmart or something. The past month or more has been awful and I am very very glad to have healthy ribs again. I’m going to take things a bit slower this time, pushing myself too far too fast is what got me into this mess and set me back a month. I really want to do this and I don’t want that determination to be the thing that makes it an impossibility.
Wow this got out of hand a bit. All the research that went into this. I’m never doing this again but it was fun. Excuse me while I go die. Sorry if it’s a bit blurry, I was working very large.
I am a medical student from a developing country in Southeast Europe, the average monthly wages here are around 420 euros. The education system incomparable to the american or european system, the literature we use is so outdated that our diploma is not recognised outside our county. But we want to be as equally good doctors. Therefore, we try using foreign books and online resources but you know these things usually have a price and my family cannot afford to pay for my ‘non-university-required’. /optional study materials. I am in my clinical years of med school and I have found the OnlineMedEd videos very useful but I can not afford the OME notes. May ask if anyone could be willing to share the onlinemeded notes pdf with me. I would be really grateful. Sorry for taking your time. please if you can and want help me. Thank you in advance!
my ancestors seeing me shrug off a diarrhea session
People in the notes confused because they’re so accustomed to running water they don’t know how close diarrhea might have otherwise come to killing them if they’ve had it even once lol it’s killed more humans than just about anything in history
We’re the granddaughters of the bowels you couldn’t irritate
Mine would be baffled that I’ve gone 5+ years with bloody diarrhea. Inflammatory Bowel Disease has probably always existed, but they didn’t have treatment.
I do want to specifically shout out Dr Thomas Latta, who is the person who gave us IV hydration, and pretty much magically cured cholera with it in his first attempt. From his diary:
I attempted to restore the blood to its natural state, by injecting copiously into the larger intestines warm water.. trusting that the power of absorption might not be altogether lost, but by these means I produced, in no case, any permanent benefit.. I at length resolved to throw the fluid immediately into the circulation. In this, having no precedent to direct me, I proceeded with much caution. The first subject of experiment was an aged female. She had apparently reached the last moments of her earthly existence, and now nothing could injure her – indeed, so entirely was she reduced, that I feared I should be unable to get my apparatus ready ere she expired. Having inserted a tube into the basilic vein, cautiously – anxiously, I watched the effects; ounce after ounce was injected, but no visible change was produced. Still persevering, I though she began to breathe less laboriously, soon the sharpened features, and sunken eye, and fallen jaw, pale and cold, bearing the manifest impress of death’s signet, began to glow with returning animation; the pulse, which had long ceased, returned to the wrist; at first small and quick, by degrees it became more and more distinct … and in the short space of half and hour, when six pints had been injected, she expressed in a firm voice that she was free from all uneasiness, actually became jocular, and fancied all she needed was a little sleep.
Diarrhea can very easily be death by dehydration, especially when you can’t consume oral fluids (Cholera causes extreme vomiting as well). Not only did we solve part of the problem with clean water, the other half was learning how to put clean water into our bodies (with salt).
Also fun fact, Thomas Latta was active in England at the same time as John Snow, the father of epidemiology, also in response to the Cholera epidemics at the time.
The mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell is a fact which is often discussed on the internet. The Golgi apparatus, however, being the post office of the cell, has not gotten nearly as much recognition. This is in line with the years-long underfunding of the postal service, which provides a deeply important service to society yet does not get the recognition it deserves. In this essay I will
I love playing an accidental game of hide-and-seek in the Emergency room. Did I go to the bathroom? Did someone stick me in one of the secret rooms? Did someone put me back where I wasn’t supposed to be so I accidentally surprise another nurse coming into my room with a lady in a wheelchair? Nothing is certain! Chaos reins supreme!
A nurse blew veins in both my arms trying to find out if I have pneumonia so I’ve changed my mind about wanting to date a vampire, everyone stay the fuck away from my blood vessels for real.
![[Indefinite Hiatus] --- So Much Stranger, So Much Darker, So Muc](https://64.media.tumblr.com/avatar_4c9eaf2e3e1e_30.png){kind=avatar}
