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sadselfhelp · 3 years

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Who I Am, And Why I Created This Blog.

TRIGGER WARNINGS - Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Child Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Violence, Drug Overdose, Suicide, Psychotic Breaks.

Take a walk with me, let me show you around the mind of The Sad Hatter.

There's a lot going on in my head right now, and I feel like I'm on the precipice of something. I'm standing on a cliff's edge and I'm either going to plummet or I'm going to fly. It's been building inside me for a long time, and I can't contain it anymore. So here it is, here's me laid bare, because I need to say this, I need to put it into words. I need to purge it all. To try and make sense of all of this shit in my brain, I think it's time I organize it. I don't know where to begin, but I guess I start at the beginning and make use of the ability to edit.

Before you read this, please be aware of the trigger warnings. And please understand that this is the most honest and open I have been, I really am stripped bare in this piece of writing. It’s not at all pretty, and am I not guiltless in parts. This may well alter whatever opinion you have of me.

I guess the beginning is birth, right? But I don't want to rehash all that trauma, so let me speed through it. Twenty-Eight years ago I was born, violently. I'm serious, I ripped my way out of the womb, and tore that thing apart. I guess I can sort of understand why my mother couldn't love me after that was my first act, collapsing her womb. So let me speedrun this part of the story. Mum didn't want me, gave me to my dad who raised me as a single parent with the help of his parents, until he met my stepmother. Shockingly, she didn't want me either, but because she couldn't get rid of me she decided to physical and psychological torture was the next best thing.

When I was eleven years old I snapped and didn't want to put up with it anymore, so I wrote a goodbye note and then snuck into the medicine cabinet and took a bunch of pills. Spoiler alert, I didn't die. I did however end up in a children's home, cue more abuse, little bit of bullying and sexual assault etc.... I snapped again, but instead of turning my anger inwards, I became an absolute bastard. Ok, I still turned it inwards a bit, I had a lot of anger, and now I have a few hundred scars to prove it. But, it turns out that violence can beget violence, and I acted out in every possible way. Racked up a horrifying rap sheet, assault, vandalism, arson, and finally... GBH. I was supposed to get put in a secure unit (child prison – Scottish Edition) but I was always able to talk myself out of trouble.

See, I was this tiny little white girl with big sad eyes and a hell of a sob story, even at the bottom of the food chain I still had privilege. So instead of getting locked up, I just got sent to a different home. And here's the really messed up part, this home was better. The staff were nicer, and nobody hurt me. My behavior literally changed overnight. I went from being charged by the police on a weekly basis, to never getting so much as a pocket money sanction. I will never excuse my actions, nor condone them, but after years of guilt I finally realized that the bad things I did were in retaliation to a bad situation, and though I wasn’t acting like a good person, I’m not a bad person, just a messed up one.

I still refused to go to school though, because though I didn't yet know it at the time, I had severe social anxiety. I was smart, a little too smart to be honest, and I found myself thriving with a private tutor. When the time came to sit my exams, someone fucked up, and despite having record breaking test scores on the pre-exams, I never actually got to sit my standard grades (think SAT's – Scottish Edition). I'm still bitter about that. So by this point in the story, I'm 16, and legally an adult, too old for a children's home. I got turfed to a hostel, and the next few parts of the story are pretty fuzzy to me.

This is where my mental health really started to deteriorate. I bounced between homeless hostels and B&B's for a year or so, until I got a my first flat/apartment. By that point, I was utterly fucked in the head. I was blacking out frequently, for anywhere between a couple of minutes to three days. I would come back to myself in sometimes compromising positions, and once there was blood. A lot of blood, splashed all over the walls. Then there was the time I suddenly found myself standing in the kitchen, about to plunge a knife into my own chest.

Nobody ever did tell me what the hell that was about. Or maybe they did and I just... forgot? But because I was extremely suicidal, a doctor finally decided to do something, and the police and the paramedics came to my door to take me to the psychiatric hospital. I spent ten months there while I cycled through various anti-psychotics and anti-depressants, and was 'rehabilitated into society'. The second I was out, I made the worst decision I have ever made in my life. If I can give you one piece of advice, one lesson to take from my shitshow of a life, it's this: Don't move hundreds of miles away to be with the guy you met online while you were having a psychotic break.

I've never really thought of myself as a victim, but I guess I'm the only one who saw it that way. Ben, that was his name, Ben was a monster, and I didn't know it until it was too late. He never hit me, never lifted a hand to me, he never had to. He could put a knife in my hand and make me hurt myself for his entertainment. I had told him everything, so he knew exactly how to break me down, how to make me want to bleed. He locked me in a house and used me up. And when I had enough, and tried to break free of him, he would just tell the police I was mentally ill and they would smile sympathetically and give me back to him.

But then my dad had a breakdown. My dad, who when he found out what my stepmother was doing to me, buried his head in the sand and packed my little suitcase for me. I hadn't spoken to him in a while until he reached out from the same psychiatric ward I had not long vacated. He had cracked under the realization that I had never lied about her, and the guilt broke him apart. I could have hated him, if it had happened a few years earlier then I would have. But I had experienced enough of the world to learn a few things, like how easily it is to fuck up, and that no matter how strong you are, you aren't immune to monsters. The truth was he was as much a victim of her evil as I was. She had manipulated him, played with his head, used his insecurities against him. So I helped him through his issues, the way I wished someone had helped me. That doesn't really make me a good person, it just makes me human.

But my dad got better, and found his footing. And when he did, he realized something wasn't right with me, and I told him the truth about Ben. My dad had left me to suffer at the hands of an abuser once before, and he wasn't going to allow it to happen again. He came and got me, and he took me home. He moved me in with him, gave me his bed and slept on the couch. After a couple of months, he helped me get my own place.

And that's the happy ending, right? All the trauma was over, I was safe, that's where the story should end. Right? I bet you're not naive enough to believe that, but I sure as hell was. I thought I would recover and that everything would be ok. I thought that with safety, there would come the chance to heal. I thought my wounds would scab over, and I would have my scars but at least I would be able to move without bleeding out. But that's not how trauma works. I had two decades worth of trauma, abuse, and hell.

I just... faded. I didn't crack, I didn't crumble, I didn't break, I just stopped. For five years I sat in one room of my home, drowning inside myself. Last year I got handed a lifeline, and now I live somewhere better. I'm not really allowed to live independently so I actually live in kind of retirement village of all places. I have my own house, but it's got intercoms and emergency cords everywhere, I get checked on daily by on on-site worker. And I'm trying to get better, I really am. It's just not that easy.

There's more to the whole story that I maybe should have put in, like the fact that my mother was a drug addict when she was pregnant with me, and that may have been the reason some of my organs didn't properly form and/or formed wrong. My lung split in half when I was a baby, and parts of my stomach are missing. Or that my mother is full on batshit insane. I could have had a perfect childhood and I still would have been mentally ill. Hell, I was seeing psychologists at five years old. Take my sketchy genetics, add twenty years of severe traumas, and well... I'm a little fucked up. Because a lot of medical conditions use acronyms, my full list of diagnosis looks like I'm collecting the fucking alphabet.

I have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Agoraphobia. I also have a Pulmonary Sequestration, Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, the stomach and lung issues. Immune Hemolytic Anemia, I'm basically allergic to my own blood. Plus, ya know, my liver recently decided to just fucking nope out, the pissy lil bitch is failing. I also may or may not have cancer, I don't know because I pussied out of the tests. At this point I am a walking, decaying corpse that is held together by glitter glue and bitterness.

So... why exactly am I writing this? And why am I even considering posting this? I mean, my problems aren't as bad as some other people's. We've all got shit to deal with, especially in 2020. The whole world is falling apart, so what right do I have to sit here pouting and pouring my problems out? Well, for a start, I guess this is my blog, I can post whatever, and it's up to everyone else if they read it.

So here it is, you have the backstory, so here's what it's all been leading up to.

I'm struggling. Like, really struggling. I'm stuck on this cliff, and I want off, any way I can. Whether I fall or fly, I just want free. I can't live like this anymore, because I can't breathe.

The fucking agonizing duality of being socially anxious and too easily overstimulated, and yet feeling fucking empty inside if you're not surrounded by action and noise. The world is too noisy for my brain, but my brain is too noisy for the world. I get antsy if I'm not doing at least a thousand different tasks, but I get overwhelmed if I try to do anything at all. It leads to short bursts of mania, followed by weeks of depression. But underneath all of that, under all the dramatic showboating, and the dark humor, under all the bravado... I'm really just sad.

Years ago, when I first came up with the moniker "The Sad Hatter", I said it was because I may be mad, but my madness was born of sadness. I'm just sad. I carry it with me where my heart should be. So I named myself Sad, and I put on the hat, and I wore my sadness like armor, turned it into an act, and made a spectacle of it. "I'm The Sad Hatter, and I'm mentally ill but that's alright, I'm going to be just fine!" I told you all I had my issues, and I'll come close to opening up about how bad those issues are, I'll give little chunks of information at intermittent intervals, and then two hours later I'll act like it never happened. I'll admit I was close to killing myself, and then two days later I'll post dog photo's and act like I'm all better.

I'm writing this because I'm sad. And tomorrow, I'll act like I'm not. But when I waver again, I'll come back here and I'll open up again. And along the way, maybe you're reading this and realizing you aren't alone in feeling overwhelmed. Maybe you're realizing you're not the only one who isn't healing neatly and in a timely manner. Maybe you're reading this and gaining some insight into the struggles someone you care about is facing. Maybe my opening up is can help somebody else, I really hope so, but I know it's helping one person. It's helping me.

This blog, it's about living with myself. It's about living with The Sad Hatter.

#trigger warnings #mental health #anxiety #borderline personality disorder #adhd #domestic abuse #child abuse #self harm #violence #just all the trigger warnings

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myonechicagoworld · 3 years

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CHICAGO FIRE – GOD HAS SPOKEN (S01E11)

[background commotion]

Gabby Dawson: [grunts]

[grunts]

[straining]

[pained groan]

Shay? [grunts]

Shay.

Hey. Shay, sweetie. Sweetie [groans]

Hey.

Shay, Shay.

You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.

[sirens approaching]

Gabby Dawson: [pants] You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna

be okay.

cutscene

Nancy Casey: You look good, you really do. I’m so proud of you.

Matt Casey: Thanks.

Nancy Casey: How’s Hallie?

Matt Casey: We broke up.

Nancy Casey: Oh. But you were together for, what, four years?

Matt Casey: Eight.

Nancy Casey: Well, I never liked her.

Do you, uh… do you talk to your sister?

Matt Casey: Not really.

Nancy Casey: Well, the reason I’m asking is, um, my hearing’s

coming up.

Matt Casey: I know.

Nancy Casey: And I thought maybe this time… I’ve been thinking

about this a lot, Matthew… you could talk to her.

Matt Casey: It’s still hard for her.

Nancy Casey: It’s hard for her?

Look, I need to turn the page on this too, you know?

When am I gonna be allowed to do that, stuck in

here?

Matt Casey: Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you killed

dad.

Mom.

[door buzzer sounds]

Man 1 (Orderly): All keys, cell phones, any metal objects must be

placed in the basket.

cutscene

Paramedic: BP’s 180 over 100. Pulse of 56. Respirations of ten and

irregular.

Gabby Dawson: Her pupils are unequal, but she responded to light

on scene.

ER Doctor: Is she allergic to any medication?

Gabby Dawson: No.

Chief Boden: Gabriela.

You okay?

ER Doctor: We’re going to need a blood test, stat… [indistinct

chatter]… order labs, get a CBC… [continues

indistinctly]

Gabby Dawson: [sobs]

Chief Boden: She’s gonna be fine.

Gabby Dawson: Yeah.

Chief Boden: Gonna get you looked at, okay? Get you cleaned up.

Come on. It’s okay. Go ahead.

Kelly Severide: Is that her? Is that Shay?

Chief Boden: Let them do their job.

Kelly.

Kelly!

Kelly Severide: I want to see her.

Chief Boden: Right now, there’s nothing you can do.

Kelly Severide: What are they… what are they talking here?

She’s got a…a head injury?

How bad is it?

Chief Boden: I don’t know.

- Title -

[indistinct hospital chatter]

Matt Casey: [panting] What have you heard?

Chief Boden: Moderate traumatic brain injury. And they’ve located

the brain swelling, so they’re gonna do an MRI,

try to determine the extent of the damage.

Mouch: If anybody can find a way to rally, it’s Shay.

Matt Casey: And Dawson’s all right?

Chief Boden: She has a laceration on her leg, but other than that,

she’s fine.

They’re gonna release her here in a minute.

Matt Casey: The other driver, this tow truck, was he DUI or?

Otis Zvonecek: No. Breathalyser came up negative.

Peter Mills: Stupid freak thing. Truck blew a tire.

Matt Casey: What about Shay’s family?

Kelly Severide: Mom’s in Tacoma. Dad’s in Baton Rouge. I left a

message for them both.

Chief Boden: Every thought, every prayer needs to be directed

down that hallway.

Okay?

cutscene

Christopher Herrmann: This house needs a run, big time.

Mouch: Hey Dawson.

Firefighter: Hey Dawson.

Matt Casey: Hey.

Kelly Severide: Shay?

Gabby Dawson: Uh, she’s still in ICU, but, uh, the brain swelling

subsided, and she won’t need surgery or the

ICP catheter. They’re hoping she’s out of the

woods.

Chief Boden: Just spoke with Chief Hatcher. In the absence of

Shay, Candidate Peter Mills will fill in the vacated

post in an EMT capacity.

Gabby Dawson: For how long?

Chief Boden: Till Shay’s back in this house.

Otis Zvonecek: Hey, hey. Finally some good news. Listen to this.

That fire on North Hamlin… guess who the body

was. “The Chicago medical examiner identified

it to be that of Manuel ‘Flaco’ Rodriguez,

purported leader of the street gang, Insane

Kings, wanted for a string of unsolved West

Side murders, said a CPD spokesman.”

Mouch: So long, Flaco. God has spoken.

Christopher Herrmann: I don’t throw the word, karma, around a

lot, but that’s exactly what that is, my

friends, with a capital K.

Matt Casey: Your brother can breathe easy, Cruz.

So can you.

Joe Cruz: Well, you got that right.

cutscene

Kelly Severide: Hey, Dawson. Hey.

What else did the doctors say?

Gabby Dawson: Uh, it’s a head injury. They’re hoping to get a better

indication of where she’s at in the next 24.

Hey, she looked a little better.

Kelly Severide: You saw her?

Gabby Dawson: Yeah.

Kelly Severide: They told me no visitors.

Gabby Dawson: I wasn’t a visitor. I was… I was getting examined

myself.

Kelly Severide: You’re right. I’m… I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry.

How are you doing?

Gabby Dawson: Great, thanks.

Kelly Severide: The thing is, me and Shay had a disagreement right

before she went on shift.

Gabby Dawson: Yeah, I know. She asked if she could stay at my

place for a while.

Kelly Severide: Yeah. But in the light of things, I think she should

come back home after she’s discharged. I’ll take

care of her.

Gabby Dawson: I mean, that’s her call to make. But I’m not really

worried about that right now.

Kelly Severide: Of course. Yeah. I just want her to be okay.

Gabby Dawson: Yeah, me too.

[locker door swings open]

cutscene

Leon Cruz: Yo.

Joe Cruz: What are you doing, waving that thing around in here?

Leon Cruz: Yo, did you read this?

Joe Cruz: Yes.

Leon Cruz: I thought you would have been doing cartwheels.

Yo, when nobody saw him come out that blaze, there

was crazy stories flying everywhere, like he was

hiding out somewhere.

This confirms it, bro. Flaco’s dead.

Joe Cruz: I know, Leon.

Leon Cruz: You did this for me.

That’s why you’ve been acting all shook lately, huh?

Yo, we take this to the grave, just me and you.

Thank you. Thank you!

Me salvaste la vida.

So quit trippin’, bro.

cutscene

Christopher Herrmann: This wedding job I booked, the father of

the bride and I, we hit it off. Anyway,

he’s the CFO of this sewage treatment

plant.

Chief Boden: Really? You’re into sewage now?

Christopher Herrmann: No. Anyway, turns out he’s a family guy,

a really good guy. He has some venture

capital that’s burning a hole in his

pocket, says he might be willing to

invest some start-up cash in a

fleet of limos.

Chief Boden: What’s the catch?

Christopher Herrmann: None. The only hitch is that I invited him

here to the firehouse today to hash

things out. But with everything going

on…

Chief Boden: If Shay gets wind that you screwed up this business

opportunity ‘cause of her, she will kick you in your

nuts.

Christopher Herrmann: Yeah, but…

Chief Boden: Go ahead, take the meeting. We need to get back to

normal around here.

Christopher Herrmann: I appreciate it, Chief.

Chief Boden: No catch, huh?

Christopher Herrmann: Not unless he tries paying me with

Monopoly money.

[station alert buzzes & sounds]

(Over PA): Truck 81…

Chief Boden: [sighs]

(Over PA): Squad 3, Ambulance 61. Woman trapped from unknown

cause.

[indistinct chatter in background]

Lady 1: The ground just collapsed.

Kelly Severide: Okay. Get back. Get back.

(into radio) We got a sinkhole.

Guys, get these cars moved in case of a secondary

collapse.

Lady 1: I tried to get close, but the ground started to pour in.

Kelly Severide: She your neighbour?

Lady 1: Our mail lady.

Victim 1 (Mail lady): Help me, please hurry!

Somebody, help me! Help me, please.

Kelly Severide: Lieutenant Kelly Severide, Chicago Fire

Department. We’re gonna work on getting

you out. What’s your name?

Victim 1 (Mail lady): Sylvia. I need to get out of here. I… It’s getting

hard to breathe [coughs]

Kelly Severide: Hey, air, struts and shoring, right now.

Matt Casey: Call the Chief.

Firefighter: Got it, Lieutenant.

Victim 1 (Mail lady/Sylvia): [strained breathing]

Please help me!

Kelly Severide: Is that all we got?

Firefighter: That’s it.

Kelly Severide: That won’t be enough.

[ground collapsing]

Victim 1 (Mail lady/Sylvia): [screaming & coughing]

Kelly Severide: Get me more boards!

Matt Casey: Grab anything you can get!

Victim 1 (Mail lady/Sylvia): Please help me [coughing]

[saw buzzing]

Lady 2 (Resident with Fence): Hey!

Christopher Herrmann: Sorry ma’am.

[indistinct chatter in background]

[ladder raising]

Matt Casey: Come on.

Victim 1 (Mail lady/Sylvia): [gasping]

Kelly Severide: Hey, Sylvia, put these on to protect your eyes.

Christopher Herrmann: Up on green.

It’s in.

Chief Boden: Okay, go ahead down. Check the shoring.

Victim 1 (Mail lady/Sylvia): [coughs]

Kelly Severide: All right, Chief, good to go.

Victim 1 (Mail lady/Sylvia): [gasping] I can’t breathe.

Matt Casey: Got something for you.

Victim 1 (Mail lady/Sylvia): I can’t feel anything.

Matt Casey: Here, put this on.

Deep breaths, Sylvia.

Kelly Severide: [grunting] Good to go.

Joe Cruz: Here’s the line, Lieutenant.

[ground starts to collapse again]

Kelly Severide: Easy.

Matt Casey: Come on.

Good.

Kelly Severide: All right, get her out of here.

Chief Boden: Pull her out. Pull her out now.

[men grunting]

Victim 1 (Mail lady/Sylvia): [cries out]

[ground rumbling]

Kelly Severide: Let’s get out of here!

Victim 1 (Mail lady/Sylvia): Oh!

Matt Casey: Let’s move.

Christopher Herrmann: Let her in.

Chief Boden: I got her.

Victim 1 (Mail lady/Sylvia): [crying] Thank you.

Christopher Herrmann: All right.

Chief Boden: Way to go.

Good job.

cutscene

Doctor: Eye, motor, verbal responses have improved steadily in the

last two hours. We still have to monitor her closely, see

how she progresses.

Gabby Dawson: Hey.

Leslie Shay: Hey. You’re working?

Gabby Dawson: Well, you know, with you faking it, someone’s got

to step up.

[both chuckles lightly]

Gabby Dawson: How you feeling?

Leslie Shay: Oh, a little beat up, but I’m all right. Be a little while

before I see the ambo, I guess.

Gabby Dawson: You really scared me, girl. Don’t do it again, okay?

Leslie Shay: So you were telling me, last thing I remember, about

your date with Casey. It didn’t go so well or

something.

Gabby Dawson: Oh, no. Jeez. The date was a disaster. And Casey

kissed me on the cheek.

Leslie Shay: Oh… listen, it’s not too late to switch teams.

Gabby Dawson: You already moved in. Let’s take it slow.

[knocks on door]

Leslie Shay: Hey.

Oh.

Kelly Severide: You’re up.

Leslie Shay: Yeah.

Kelly Severide: [chuckles]

[kissing sound]

Leslie Shay: Hi. They’re so beautiful. Thank you.

Kelly Severide: Be good to get you home. The place feels really

empty without hipster music blasting from your

room [laughs]

Leslie Shay: I’m still gonna stay with Dawson, Kelly. I think the way

we left it is best.

Kelly Severide: Let me know if you hear any more updates.

Gabby Dawson: Are you high?

Kelly Severide: What?

Gabby Dawson: You’ve got pinpoint pupils.

Kelly Severide: Are you out of your mind?

Gabby Dawson: You didn’t answer the question.

Kelly Severide: I’m worried about Shay. Is that okay with you?

cutscene

Matt Casey: Herrmann, relax.

Christopher Herrmann: I can’t, okay? I got a lot riding on this.

Me and Cindy, we need 5 grand more to

make the down payment so we can move

the hell out.

Mouch: I thought you got along with your father-in-law.

Christopher Herrmann: You want to drastically alter your

relationship with your father-in-law?

Move in with him. Used to be that I was a

fireman hero. Now he treats me like I’m

Mr. Frickin’ Belvedere.

Matt Casey: You’re putting too much pressure on yourself.

Capp: Herrmann, there’s a Lance Ebbott out front for you.

Christopher Herrmann: He’s punctual.

Mr. Ebbott.

Man 1 (Lance Ebbott): Lance, please.

Christopher Herrmann: Lance, good to see you.

Man 1 (Lance Ebbott): You too.

Christopher Herrmann: Fantastic wedding the other day.

Man 1 (Lance Ebbott): Oh, well, thank you.

Christopher Herrmann: Your daughter looked lovely. So did your

wife.

Not that I was staring or anything.

Man 1 (Lance Ebbott): [chuckles] You’re very kind to say so.

So uh, I looked it over… or rather, my

business manager did. And it looks good.

Just one last step, and then I’m in.

Take me for a ride after your shift. Show me

how the business operates, or more

importantly, how you operate.

Relationships, trust, loyalty, that’s what’s

important to me.

Christopher Herrmann: As it is with me, sir.

Man 1 (Lance Ebbott): Lance.

Christopher Herrmann: Lance.

Man 1 (Lance Ebbott): See you at 7?

Christopher Herrmann: Yes, sir. See you… Lance, see you at 7.

[whisper shouts] Yeah!

cutscene

[train horn blowing in distance]

[knocking on car window]

Man 2: Can I help you with something?

Joe Cruz: What?

Man 2: Can I help you with something? This is private property.

Joe Cruz: Where am I? What is this place?

Man 2: Gary.

Joe Cruz: Gary?

Man 2: Yes, sir.

Joe Cruz: Indiana?

cutscene

Gabby Dawson: [exhales]

Matt Casey: Hey.

Gabby Dawson: Hey.

Matt Casey: So Shay’s good, huh?

Gabby Dawson: Well, she still got some recovery left to go, but we

definitely got lucky.

Matt Casey: What about you?

Should probably have taken a couple days off.

Gabby Dawson: Right. Like you would have.

Matt Casey: Listen, uh… the Christmas party. If I seemed

distracted, it’s because… I guess I was. There’s some

stuff I’m dealing with, stuff I gotta figure out.

Gabby Dawson: Well, you know you can talk to me anytime you

want, right? About any of that…stuff.

[station alarm buzzes & blares]

(Over PA): Ambulance 61, difficulty breathing. 800 East Cottage

Grove.

Gabby Dawson: I hope it works out… whatever it is.

If we set a shift record for calls, it’s on you,

you know.

Peter Mills: So you’re setting me up to be the firehouse jinx?

Gabby Dawson: I’m just saying I’m counting.

I’m not one to shy away from labelling folks.

Peter Mills: [chuckles]

[knocks on door]

Gabby Dawson: CFD. Anybody there?

Peter Mills: Whoa, there’s a woman on the floor in there.

Gabby Dawson: All right, we got to get in. Break it.

Peter Mills: All right.

[glass smashing]

[dog barking & growling]

Peter Mills: All right. Here. Shh, shh.

[barking]

Peter Mills: Okay, good, good… good poochie.

[barking]

Peter Mills: Wait! Wait!

[sighs]

Gabby Dawson: [sighs]

Peter Mills: Oh man.

[barking]

Peter Mills: That woman is in bad shape. We need to get back out

there.

Gabby Dawson: (into radio) This is Ambulance 61. We need a

company for manpower and CPD.

Dispatcher: Copy that, 61. Sending backup. We’ll notify...

Peter Mills: Here, take this out of the wrapper.

[dog snarling & barking]

Gabby Dawson: What?

Peter Mills: Okay.

Here goes.

[snarling & barking]

Gabby Dawson: [chuckles]

[clears throat]

Peter Mills: [sniffing] It smells nice. It’s, like, a… a vanilla candle or

something.

Gabby Dawson: Uh, that… that’s my body lotion.

[dog panting]

[dog whimpers]

Peter Mills: Yeah, we’re good.

Gabby Dawson: You got her ID, medical info?

Peter Mills: Yes. We are all good.

Gabby Dawson: Just don’t miss any turns on the way to the ER.

Peter Mills: Ha. Funny.

cutscene

Christie: This thing always catches.

Matt Casey: You should look into getting it fixed.

Christie: Yeah, unfortunately Jim’s dangerous with tools.

Matt Casey: [chuckles]

Christie: If only I knew a contractor.

Matt Casey: Thanks for having me.

I wanted to talk to you about something.

Christie: Let me guess.

Matt Casey: Just wondering if maybe you’d be willing to dial it back

this time.

Christie: This coming from you or her?

Matt Casey: From me. She’d be on parole. There would still be

restrictions in place.

Christie: [scoffs] She could’ve asked for help. She could’ve moved

far away from him. But she didn’t. She killed him.

Matt Casey: Yes, I realised that, Christie. I was there. You were in a

campus dorm on the other side of the country. I heard

all the things he said. I saw him belittle her…

break her.

She paid the price.

Listen, 15 years ago, I’m not having this conversation.

Now I am.

Christie: Nothing excuses what she did.

Matt Casey: I’m not asking you to forget.

cutscene

[kissing sounds]

Renee Royce: Mm…

Kelly Severide: Damn, I’m glad you’re back in town.

Renee Royce: Yeah, me too.

Kelly Severide: [chuckles]

Renee Royce: I was in Madrid.

Kelly Severide: How often do you have to go there?

Renee Royce: This was for an interview, actually, for a, um,

promotion.

Kelly Severide: You taking it?

Renee Royce: I am.

Kelly Severide: When?

Renee Royce: They need me there next week.

Kelly Severide: Ah.

Renee Royce: You know, it’s funny, ‘cause we’ve only dated a

couple times, but it just feels like longer,

doesn’t it?

Kelly Severide: Yeah.

Renee Royce: My stomach’s been in knots just thinking about

telling you.

[exhales] Do you get any vacation time?

Kelly Severide: A little, here and there.

Renee Royce: So then, would you think about coming out to visit

me?

Kelly Severide: Yeah.

Renee Royce: Now my stomach’s back in knots again.

Kelly Severide: Hey…

[kissing sound]

Kelly Severide: Congrats. Seriously.

And yes, I will come visit you… when I can.

Renee Royce: You will?

So then, should I pop open a bottle of champagne

to celebrate?

Kelly Severide: Absolutely.

Renee Royce: Yeah?

Kelly Severide: Yeah.

[kissing sounds]

Renee Royce: Okay.

Kelly Severide: [sighs]

cutscene

[car banging]

Lady 3: Hey, hey, where you… get back here.

Where you going?

Lady 4: He’s going away.

Lady 3: Yeah, aw.

Man 1 (Lance Ebbott): This is good. This is good. You good?

Christopher Herrmann: Great.

Man 1 (Lance Ebbott): This is great. So really great.

Christopher Herrmann: Okay.

Man 1 (Lance Ebbott): So what I’m thinking is that, once a week or

every two weeks, we go on a run, you

know? We, uh, meet clients, we drum up

new business, and that’ll be our cover

story. And then we, you know, have a

good time.

Christopher Herrmann: Sounds good to me.

Man 1 (Lance Ebbott): Good. So, uh, give me, like, ten minutes…

Christopher Herrmann: Uh huh.

Man 1 (Lance Ebbott): And then we’ll be out of here, all right?

[indistinct chatter]

[siren in the distance]

cutscene

Gabby Dawson: My family had a German Shepherd. They are great

dogs.

I’m not scared of them.

Peter Mills: Please, please. You screamed like a girl.

Gabby Dawson: I am a girl. What’s your excuse?

Hey, Cruz, you okay?

Joe Cruz: Yeah.

Gabby Dawson: You sure? You look like you’re gonna throw up.

[Mills & Dawson chuckles]

Peter Mills: She literally almost hit the ceiling when the dog lunged

at us.

Matt Casey: Oh yeah?

Peter Mills: Yeah.

Gabby Dawson: He… he jumped higher than I did.

Peter Mills: No, I jumped higher to make myself bigger. Like, when

you encounter a grizzly bear in the wild, you… you…

Gabby Dawson: That survival tip doesn’t even make any sense.

All you’re doing is, you’re standing there, making

yourself a bigger serving size for the bear or

whatever. Where I’m from, you haul your ass out

of there.

Peter Mills: Oh really?

Dawson & Mills: [laughs]

[knocks on door]

Matt Casey: Hey, Cruz.

Joe Cruz: Lieutenant, I have to talk to you about something.

Matt Casey: Okay.

[door shuts]

Joe Cruz: My brother, Leon, he might be a screw-up, but he’s got a

really good heart, you know?

Matt Casey: Yeah, of course.

Joe Cruz: And… and these… these scumbags, the Insane Kings,

you know, he’s nothing like ‘em. But… but they got their

hooks in him, and they weren’t gonna let him go.

When… when I was in that building, I was checking

floors. And there he was, you know, Flaco. He was…

Matt Casey: Let me stop you right there.

If you’re about to say what I think you are, then you

and me can walk right out this door, down to the

police station.

The second option is, you sleep on this one more

time. Think about why you did it or didn’t do it,

‘cause at this point, I have no idea ‘cause you’ve

told me nothing.

Sure as hell sounds like your brother got a new lease

on life.

Next shift, come to me. And either we go to the cops,

or you shake my hand and say, good morning, and

we go about our business.

Understand?

Joe Cruz: I understand.

[door shuts]

cutscene

Christopher Herrmann: I really appreciate it. We’ll speak soon.

Okay. Bye.

Chief Boden: Who’s that?

Christopher Herrmann: The business manager for that, uh, investor

guy.

He’s in.

Chief Boden: You’re kidding me. How much?

Christopher Herrmann: Full boat. 30 grand.

Otis Zvonecek: Dude!

Mouch: Let the ink dry first. Let the ink dry first. These things have a

way of going south.

Christopher Herrmann: He already wired the money into my bank

account.

Mouch: Well, egg on my face. Congrats.

Chief Boden: You and Cindy can get that house now.

Christopher Herrmann: Looks like it.

Chief Boden: Hey, go on. Show ‘em.

Nice little two-storey over in the West Loop.

Go ahead, show them.

Gabby Dawson: Oh, man, Herrmann, congratulations.

Otis Zvonecek: Wow.

Gabby Dawson: That’s awesome.

[cheering]

Gabby Dawson: Cindy’s gonna flip.

Christopher Herrmann: Yep.

Peter Mills: Tray?

Gabby Dawson: [clears throat]

Kelly Severide: You got a sec?

Um… I need help.

Gabby Dawson: You got it.

[station alarm buzzes & blares]

(Over PA): Truck 81, Squad 3, Battalion 25, Ambulance 61. Traffic

accident, University Village Marketplace.

[horns honking, sirens blaring]

Man 3: He drove right through… through everything.

Lady 5 (in hat): He hit that child. Didn’t even stop.

Crowd: Get him out of there.

Come on.

Chief Boden: Crowd control, before they kill that man.

Severide, get your men on that storefront glass.

Kelly Severide: Hadley, Capp, let’s go.

Joe Cruz: Back up. Back up, please. Back up!

Matt Casey: Back up.

Man 4 (In beanie): Come on.

Matt Casey: Sir, you okay?

[glass breaking]

Victim 2 (Guy on ground): [grunts]

Kelly Severide: All right boys. Glass is cleared. Treat the victim.

Gabby Dawson: Here we go. Sit down.

Firefighters: Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Hey, hey, get back. Come on.

Victim 3 (Driver): It was a shortcut. It’s the way I always go. I didn’t

see ‘em.

Gabby Dawson: Okay.

Victim 3 (Driver): I didn’t see ‘em.

Gabby Dawson: How much did you have to drink today, sir?

Victim 3 (Driver): I think a bottle.

Peter Mills: A bottle?

Man 4 (In beanie): That man is drunk off his ass. Look!

Matt Casey: Stand back and let the paramedics do their job.

Peter Mills: Stay still. Come on, stay still.

Calm down.

Gabby Dawson: Severe ataxia. What did you have to drink in that

bottle, sir?

Victim 3 (Driver): Since we were playing football all day at school…

Peter Mills: Playing football at school? You taking us down memory

lane?

Victim 3 (Driver): The coach said drink a lot of water, keep up your

energy.

What’s the score?

Police Officer: We’ll need a sobriety test from the drunk.

Man 4 (In beanie): I cannot believe this, man.

[crowd roaring]

Firefighters: Hey, hey, hey! Hey!

Come on, please.

Gabby Dawson: You smell anything on his breath?

Peter Mills: No, nothing.

Gabby Dawson: All right, sir, open your eyes wide for me and track

my finger, okay?

Crowd: Nothing but a drunk!

Gabby Dawson: He’s not drunk. He’s having a stroke.

Peter Mills: What? Are you sure? I mean, he’s not slurring.

There’s no signs of partial paralysis.

Gabby Dawson: It… it could be at the base of his brain stem.

We got to get him to the hospital right now.

Firefighter: Casey.

Crowd: Let’s kill him!

Matt Casey: Back her up.

Crowd: Why are you helping him for?

Man 4 (In beanie): Why should we move?

Crowd: Yeah, yeah, why?

Matt Casey: Because he needs treatment.

Kelly Severide: All right, everybody, back now!

Man 4 (In beanie): We’re not going anywhere.

Kelly Severide: Back up, or I’ll knock you on your ass.

Matt Casey: Pass me an IV. Sir?

Man 4 (In beanie): What?

Matt Casey: I need your help. We’re short on medics right now.

Man 4 (In beanie): You’re crazy, man.

Matt Casey: Hold this IV bag high in the air to start the flow of

saline. We use it to help the victims.

Man 4 (In beanie): You sure? Man, give me this.

Like this?

Matt Casey: Perfect.

All right, back up. Let’s give him some room.

Man 4 (In beanie): Yeah, give me some room, people.

Kelly Severide: Back up for the medics.

Man 4 (In beanie): You heard the man, back up for the medics.

Gabby Dawson: Nice.

Matt Casey: Learned that one from you.

cutscene

Leslie Shay: Seriously? I’m a paramedic.

Doctor: You’re a patient. Wheelchair to the door.

Leslie Shay: Hardass.

[groans]

Doctor: Take care of yourself.

Leslie Shay: Yeah, you too.

What’s going on?

Gabby Dawson: We have a great plan.

cutscene

Cindy Herrmann: It was gonna be sound of music, but my mom is

saying the kids are too young for Nazis. I don’t

care if they watch Scarface. They’re occupied,

and we’re celebrating.

You ready? Christopher, honey?

Oh, no. Did the money not go through?

Christopher Herrmann: No. It went through.

Cindy Herrmann: What’s the matter?

Christopher Herrmann: This guy… he’s not my kind of guy, Cindy.

Cindy Herrmann: Then we’ll give the money back.

Christopher Herrmann: Then there’s no house. Or I got to find

another schmo to invest 30 grand.

Cindy Herrmann: Let’s rent.

I love you so much for working your ass off to get

us a house again, but we just want you home.

Margie, from school, they’re gonna have a

vacancy in their complex next week. We’ll make

it our dream home.

Christopher Herrmann: You’re my girl. You know that?

cutscene

Gabby Dawson: Well, I made it for Shay, but she cancelled. So I

figured, why let it go to waste?

Peter Mills: Oh, wow.

Gabby Dawson: And you’re the only friend I have who’d appreciate

the work that went into this meal.

[keys clinking]

Peter Mills: Oh, so this is where the magic happens.

Gabby Dawson: You know it.

All right. Juniper-braised short ribs.

Peter Mills: Ooh [sniffs]

Gabby Dawson: And roasted asparagus.

Peter Mills: Damn.

Gabby Dawson: The only thing I didn’t make was dessert.

Peter Mills: Oh, hey, well, I’ll whip something up.

Gabby Dawson: Can you make something to follow this meal?

Peter Mills: Okay, let’s not get too cocky now.

Gabby Dawson: Oh, well, it ain’t being cocky if you can back it up.

Oh, didn’t Peter Mills just say that not too long

ago?

Peter Mills: Damn straight I did, but you watch and learn. Okay?

Gabby Dawson: [chuckles] Okay.

cutscene

[knocks on door]

Christie: Hi, Matt.

Matt Casey: Hey.

Christie: Come on in.

Matt Casey: Uh, I just wanted to talk to you about the mom thing

first.

Christie: Okay.

Matt Casey: [sighs] I realise that one of our problems is we don’t

talk. And I wanted to tell you, whether or not you’re

speaking up against mom at the hearing…

Christie: I will be.

Matt Casey: Then so am I. And I’m going to argue that she should

be paroled. And I respect you and… and where

you’re coming from, and I hope you can do the same

with me.

Christie: Can you wait here for a sec?

Matt Casey: Yeah.

Christie: Violet’s school picture. I was going to give it to you after

dinner.

[door shuts]

cutscene

Leslie Shay: [laughs] “An epic arctic hurricane, all-time low king

crab supply, and two mutinies aboard ship.”

Shay & Severide: [laughs]

Leslie Shay: Awesome.

See, this is why we’re best friends. Kendra, sweet as

she is, she gets me Pride and Prejudice.

Kelly Severide: Nah.

Leslie Shay: Yeah. I mean, get to know me already.

What?

And mint chocolate chip ice cream?

Kelly Severide: [chuckles]

Leslie Shay: I mean, what are we talking about here?

Kelly Severide: Welcome home.

Leslie Shay: You know I’m gonna be with you every step of the way,

right, Kelly?

Kelly Severide: I’m meeting with the surgeon next week.

They say they can get the whole procedure on the

books soon after. And I got to get Boden involved.

And… the painkillers… I’m gonna go cold turkey.

But if I feel like I’m gonna slip on a banana peel,

the union has an employee assistance program for

substance abuse. Dawson looked into it

Leslie Shay: I am so damn proud of you, Kelly.

And if I were straight, I’d throw the biggest hump into

you right now [laughs]

Kelly Severide: [sighs] I really don’t know what I would’ve done if

anything happened to you.

Leslie Shay: [sighs] I felt the exact same way.

[kissing sounds]

Leslie Shay: All right.

Kelly Severide: All right, all right. All right.

Leslie Shay: [sighs]

cutscene

Gabby Dawson: I feel like going to med school’s a way to push

myself further, you know?

Peter Mills: Yeah.

Gabby Dawson: Take it up a notch.

But that’s all on hold until my finances improve.

Peter Mills: See, you… you did take it up a notch today on shift,

calling out that stroke. I mean, you take it up every

day right where you are, so…

Gabby Dawson: [chuckles] I don’t know.

It’s funny though, the things that… the things that

you keep in your head and the things you forget.

Peter Mills: Like what?

Gabby Dawson: [chuckles] Don’t laugh. Sometimes I have a hard

time remembering all the bones in the body…

basic EMT.

[both chuckles]

Peter Mills: I don’t think I could name them all either [chuckles]

Gabby Dawson: You don’t have an excuse. It should be fresh in

your mind, Peter Mills.

Peter Mills: Well, let’s find out.

Like, what is that?

Gabby Dawson: Uh, radius.

Peter Mills: And that?

Gabby Dawson: Ulna. Right? Ul… ulna.

Peter Mills: Good. What is that?

Gabby Dawson: Sternum.

Peter Mills: It’s actually more the… costal margin.

What about this?

[kissing sounds]

[cell phone vibrating]

- end -

Definitions:

Respirations of ten = A person’s respiratory rate is the number of breaths you take per minute. A normal respiration rate for an adult at rest is 12 to 20 breaths per minute. A respiration rate under 12 or over 25 breaths per minute while resting is considered abnormal

CBC = A complete blood count (CBC) is a blood test that measures red blood cells, white blood cells, and blood platelets (cells that help your blood clot). It is one of the most common tests ordered by doctors. A CBC can provide a quick snapshot of your overall health.

Moderate traumatic brain injury = A term used when a person experiences changes in brain function for longer than a few minutes following trauma. Traumatic brain injury usually results from a violent blow or jolt to the head or body. More serious traumatic brain injury can result in bruising, torn tissues, bleeding and other physical damage to the brain. These injuries can result in long-term complications or death.

MRI = Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves to generate images of the organs in the body.

DUI = Driving under the influence (while impaired by alcohol or other drugs).

ICP catheter = Intracranial Pressure (ICP) monitoring uses a device placed inside the head. The monitor senses the pressure inside the skull and sends measurements to a recording device. The intraventricular catheter is the most accurate monitoring method. To insert an intraventricular catheter, a hole is drilled through the skull. The catheter is inserted through the brain into the lateral ventricle. This area of the brain contains cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). CSF is a liquid that protects the brain and spinal cord. The intraventricular catheter can also be used to drain fluid out through the catheter.

Me salvaste la vida = “You saved my life” in Spanish

CFO = Chief Financial Officer

Air, struts and shoring = Technical rescue teams use a variety of equipment to support collapsed structures or trenches and move heavy debris to gain access to confined void spaces. Rescue struts are commonly used in conjunction with the air bags to support the debris. In a trench rescue situation where one or both sides of the trench have collapsed, the air bags can be used to backfill the void spaces behind the shoring panels as they are being set in place. The shoring panels will be held in place against the air bag by rescue struts to protect the victim and rescuers.

Pinpoint pupils = Pinpoint pupils are pupils that remain very small even in bright light (under normal conditions, pupils change size to let in the right amount of light). They can signify many issues, including drug use, poisoning, haemorrhage, or Horner syndrome (caused by a tumour or stroke or damage to the central trunk of the brain – the brainstem)

Mr. Belvedere = It is an American sitcom where the title character, Mr Belvedere takes a job as a butler with an American family.

Ataxia = Ataxia is a degenerative disease of the nervous system. Many symptoms of Ataxia mimic those of being drunk, such as slurred speech, stumbling, falling, and incoordination. These symptoms are caused by damage to the cerebellum, the part of the brain that is responsible for coordinating movement.

Schmo = A stupid person

EMT = Emergency Medical Technician

Radius = The radius or radial bone is one of the two large bones of the forearm, the other being the ulna. It extends from the lateral side of the elbow to the thumb side of the wrist and runs parallel to the ulna. The radius is thicker than the ulna.

Ulna = The ulna is a long bone (slightly longer than radius) found in the forearm that stretches from the elbow to the smallest finger, and when in anatomical position, is found on the medial side of the forearm. It runs parallel to the radius.

Sternum = The sternum or breastbone is a long flat bone located in the central part of the chest. It connects to the ribs via cartilage and forms the front of the rib cage, thus helping to protect the heart, lungs, and major blood vessels from injury.

Costal margin = The costal margin is the lower edge of the chest (thorax) formed by the bottom edge of the rib cage. Sometimes referred to as the costal arch, the costal margin in the medial margin formed by the seventh to tenth ribs.

14 notes · View notes

bandaids-not-groupies · 5 years

Text

Get to know me uncomfortably well - tagged by @livewiredroger ❤️ sorry this took so long to post!!

1. What is your middle name?

Janie

2. How old are you?

21, gonna be 22 in a couple months

3. When is your birthday?

December 4th! A day after Ozzy’s

4. What is your zodiac sign?

Sagittarius

5. What is your favourite colour?

Light purple and black

6. What’s your lucky number?

I don’t actually know

7. Do you have any pets?

No but I did have a dog!

8. Where are you from?

Chicago!

9. How tall are you?

5’0 lmao

10. What shoe size are you?

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

Too many to count lol

12. What was your last dream about?

I don’t remember 😅

13. What talents do you have?

None lol. I’m boring af

14. Are you psychic in any way?

Nope lol

15. Favourite song?

I’m a believer by the monkees (I’ve always loved that song)

16. Favourite movie?

The Godfather

17. Who would be your ideal partner?

Keanu Reeves. He has my heart and soul

18. Do you want children?

Yeah but only like 2

19. Do you want a church wedding?

Yeah but nothing too big

20. Are you religious?

Kinda but not really. Like I acknowledge that there could be a God. But I don’t practice it that much. So basically I’M SINNING AND I’M WINNING

21. Have you ever been to the hospital?

Yeah. Twice. Once cause I had a bad ear infection and then another time I had pneumonia

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law?

Nope!

23. Have you ever met any celebrities?

Yes I have! Back in my emo days I meet Christofer Drew from Never Shout Never, which was actually pure luck! NSN was in town for a concert, but I couldn’t go because it was a 18+ venue so I couldn’t get in (I was in 8th grade at the time). So my family and I decided to go out to eat at a restaurant which was coincidentally across from the venue. So we were walking down the street and I see this huge tour bus right outside the restaurant. My heart starts racing and i thought “how cool would it be if I bumped into someone from the group” well lo and behold as we are coming closer to the bus, Christofer Drew turns the corner and walks towards the bus. So I stop in my tracks and just say “Christofer Drew?” And he stops and he says hi! He asked if I was going to the show and I said no and he goes “well you gotta promise you’ll come to the next one!” Of course I made the promise and I didn’t break it! He came back that summer and I got to see him ❤️ I also met two groups called Breathe Carolina and Crown The Empire. I also met Evan Peters and Sebastian Stan at Comic Con a couple years ago. I also met Corey Crawford. The goaltender for the Chicago Blackhawks, my favorite hockey team.

24. Baths or showers?

Showers! I don’t like the idea of bathing in your own filth.

25. What color socks are you wearing?

I’m not wearing any!

26. Have you ever been famous?

Nope lmao and I probably never will be

28. What type of music do you like?

I like oldies. Mostly from the 50s-80s. Anything from Dean Martin to Motley Crue. I do like modern music too. I still listen to some of the bands I listened to in middle school lol (like the ones i mentioned before and others like All Time Low, Pierce The Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, Of Mice & Men, Asking Alexandria, and a couple more.) I also like Greta Van Fleet and 5 Seconds of Summer. I also like spanish music. Like Maluma, Bad Bunny, Becky G, etc.

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping?

Nope lol

30. How many pillows do you sleep with?

It depends. It could be one or none. Sometimes i don’t use a pillow

31. What position do you usually sleep in?

On my tummy!

32. How big is your house?

It’s a two bedroom apartment. I’m not complaining tho, its very cozy.

33. What do you typically have for breakfast?

If I wake up early enough lol it’ll usually be eggs (over medium), some coffee, and some bread

34. Have you ever fired a gun?

Nope and i don’t plan on it!

35. Have you ever tried archery?

Yes! I tried it when I was in Girl Scouts in elementary school

36. Favourite clean word?

Groovy

37. Favorite swear word?

definitely FUCK

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?

like a day? I got like four hours of sleep the night before. Got up at like 6am, went about my day. Then I stayed up until 7am working on a research paper for class (college is a BITCH).

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer?

Nah cause your girl is hella ugly lmao

41. Are you a good liar?

Not at all. People can tell when I’m lying cause my voice gets high lmao

42. Are you a good judge of character?

Eh I do my best

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own?

I try to do a posh British accent and I try to do a Steve Irwin Aussie accent

44. Do you have a strong accent?

People say I have a strong chicagoan accent but i don’t hear it!

45. What is your favourite accent?

I’m a sucker for aussie accents

46. What is your personality type?

just took the test..i got ISFP-T (adventurer)

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?

hmmmm all I can think of at the moment is my Doc Martens. They aren’t really clothing but it’s all I can think of lol

48. Can you curl your tongue?

Nope!

49. Are you an innie or an outie?

outie :(((( i hate it

50. Left or right-handed?

Right handed!

51. Are you scared of spiders?

YES YES YES

52. Favourite food?

Pasta! I could eat it all day, every day

53. Favourite foreign food?

Tamales and Pozole. That’s my shitttt

54. Are you a clean or messy person?

I try and be a clean person and stay organized but it only lasts for a bit then I go back to my messy ways lol

55. Most used phrase?

“that’s a mood” and “no mames guey” (Mexican slang)

56. Most used word?

Dude and Darling

57. How long does it take for you to get ready?

Depends. If I wear my hair natural, then an hour. But if I gotta style it, then like an hour and a half or two hours( I got a lot of fucking hair, dude).

58. Do you have much of an ego?

Hell no lmao. This bitch has a low self-esteem so 🤷🏻‍♀️

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops?

Suck 🤪

60. Do you talk to yourself?

All the time lmao

61. Do you sing to yourself?

Yeah sometimes

62. Are you a good singer?

Nope lmao but I still do it anyways

63. Biggest Fear?

A lot of shit. Spiders, Holes (trypophobia), tearing my achilles or getting them cut (ever since I saw Pet Sematary), dolls, bugs crawling under my skin, throwing up...and i can’t think of anymore on the spot

64. Are you a gossip?

you bet your ass I am. Soy una chismosa lmao

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen?

Titanic

66. Do you like long or short hair?

On girls, long but not too long. Maybe like mid-back. And guys, long, like ear length and longer

67. Can you name all 50 states of America?

Yeah but i couldn’t point them out on a map

68. Favourite school subject?

Biology/Human Anatomy. I’m a sucker for science

69. Extrovert or Introvert?

Definitely an introvert. No doubt about that lol

70. Have you ever been scuba diving?

Nope!

71. What makes you nervous?

Meeting new people, class discussions, and presentations

72. Are you scared of the dark?

If i’ve just seen a scary movie then yes lol

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?

Sometimes. For instance, if one of my friends from ecuador uses a word wrong in a sentence, then I would tell them the right way to say it to help them learn more english. i never correct someone to seem like i’m smarter or to be rude. It’s simply to help them.

74. Are you ticklish?

Yeah! In some places like my feet, neck, and my back,

75. Have you ever started a rumour?

No way! That’s terrible

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?

Only when babysitting my little cousins lol

77. Have you ever drank underage?

Yeah lmao. When I went away for college

78. Have you ever done drugs?

Once, when I hungout with a guy at school we smoked some weed

79. Who was your first real crush?

One of my friends from college. I met him Freshman year and I still like him...I’ve liked him for four years but i’ve never had the guts to tell him

80. How many piercings do you have?

6! I have four on my left ear and two on my right ear. I have the standard lobe piercings, then the upper lobe on both sides. Then on my left I have one above the upper. And then I have my helix pierced on the left side. (i hope this all made sense lol)

81. Can you roll your R’s?

Nope

82. How fast can you type?

Eh I would say pretty average

83. How fast can you run?

Not at all. I hate running

84. What colour is your hair?

Dark brown!

85. What color is your eyes?

Dark brown

86. What are you allergic to?

Some ingredient in the Banana Boat sunscreen. And some type of plant. I don’t exactly know which one cause I went to the botantic garden one time on a field trip and I don’t know which plant caused my allergic reaction but when I got home I had hives all over me.

87. Do you keep a journal?

Nope, never did

88. What do your parents do?

My mom is an ortho technician and my dad is a delivery man

89. Do you like your age?

Yeah I guess. I mean I can buy my own alcohol so that’s pretty neat

90. What makes you angry?

Everything

91. Do you like your own name?

Eh it’s alright. Pretty boring

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?

I like the name Elena for a girl and Jonathan for a boy

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?

Doesn’t matter to me

94. What are you strengths?

I’m a ride or die bitch.

95. What are your weaknesses?

I don’t really share my emotions so I keep things bottled up

96. How did you get your name?

My cousin picked out my name

97. Were your ancestors royalty?

Not that I know of. But what I do know is I have family from Spain.

98. Do you have any scars?

Yeah, one on my arm from when I burned myself with my straightener. And another at the place where my nose meets my forehead, between my brows. When I was in elementary school, I was running out on the playground and I tripped and I slide across the cement and scraped my nose and my whole forehead. THERE. WAS. BLOOD. EVERYWHERE.

99. Colour of your bedspread?

Light pink

100. Colour of your room?

White!

I tag: @tommyleeownsme, @babe-mustaine, @waycooljunior, and @universal-scorpio ❤️

#sorry this is hella long #omfg #personal

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purplesurveys · 5 years

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492

How's your day going? Super chill, which is a nice change after the hectic last couple of days. Went to the mall with my family this morning to have lunch, discovered the gift that is spicy tuna salad, bought myself iced coffe and a container of pink slime, and spent the whole afternoon just playing my new favorite app, Bitlife. What shape is your face? It’s square-ish, which I hated so much when I was younger because I thought it made my face look abnormal (cause no one else in school had a square face) and that it gave me such a wide jaw. Nowadays I embrace it precisely for the reason that it’s not a common Filipino feature, and because it gives me a really good jawline. What sort of computer are you on right now? I’m on a Macbook Air. What's your favorite restaurant? I have a lot of favorites depending on the cuisine, but in general Yabu easily takes the cake. Torch is a favorite if I wanna spend on really good sushi. Mama Lou’s is my favorite Italian place; Marugame Udon is my favorite if I wanna have a budget-friendly meal; Mesa is my go-to for Filipino food. What does your umbrella look like? I used to have a pink umbrella with a faint print on it, but as with all things I own, I eventually lost it.

Do you share a room with anyone? My dog. Are you superstitious? Only when it comes to Oble, my university’s symbol. I’ve explained the supersition on an old survey but it’s an easy Google search if anyone’s curious. Do you believe in astrology? NO. Take the vowels out of your name. What does it spell? Rbyn. Do you eat breakfast every day? No. That’s the meal I easily miss out on; I usually just have a big lunch to make up for it. You can go back in time and slap one historical figure in the face. Who? Ferdinand Marcos, former President and dictator and forever a thief and liar. Do you have socks on? Describe them. Nope. I go barefoot in the house. Pick up your cell phone for a second. Who's your first text from? The first text I got *today was from my girlfriend, letting me know she had just woken up. Fourth missed call? My mom. Are you one of those people who has like a hundred apps on their phone? Noooooo. I never let my phone rack up too many apps. Have you ever been to the ballet? I’ve seen ballet recitals before, but I’ve never been a legit production. It’s one of the things on my bucket list. Do you have good reflexes? Yes, all thanks to all my years of table tennis. Do you have many internet friends? I used to have a lot when I was still an active fangirl on Twitter/Tumblr haha. The most fun I had was with the AJPunk fandom; I had a reeeeeally big and close circle of friends from the States and all over Europe. My sleeping schedule was insane at the time because I’d stay up to talk to them and bond over fanfic updates, new AJPunk scenes, and IRL spottings of the two. While we’ve grown apart in the last few years it’ll always remain a really fond memory for me. Do you think those friendships are on level with your real life ones? It used to be. They’d be the first people I’d talk to before the school bus picked me up and the last before I’d turn in for bed. Do you keep a journal? This Tumblr, pretty much. Describe for me your ideal sandwich. Banh mi in general. I don’t really have an ideal recipe. What are some names that you like? Olivia, Mia, Ines, Elizabeth, Scarlett, Isabella, Emma to name a few. Is there something you're putting off doing in favor of this survey? Not really. I kinda did my main task this afternoon, so I’m good for tonight. Are your friends generally like you or different from you? We’re all different in our own ways. Jo and Laurice are very chatty, JM is super closed off, Aya is a great artist, Kate's social skills are top-notch, Luisa is into sports. I’m none of those. Link me to a picture you think is cute. Egh. Do you like blowing bubbles? I loved it as a kid and I’m pretty sure I’ll still like it now.

What's the band that you love even though you know they're awful? That’s not what I think about the bands I listen to. Ever had a pillow fight? Maybe when I was younger. What do you usually pick in truth or dare? Truth. I have no problem being honest about anything. Are you better at posing good questions or coming up with outrageous dares? I’m a journalism student, so the questions. Vinyl, cassette, CD or MP3? I’d pick vinyl, even if I don’t own any or have a record player. But the reason I picked it is that Gab and I drop by Satchmi sometimes and test the record players and they sound amazing. Do you coo over other people's babies? I always would at the first chance. What is something that makes you very squeamish? Blood. Gab has nosebleeds semi-regularly and as much as I love her, that’s the one thing I can barely help her with. Like I’d get her tissues, but I literally would not look at her while it’s happening, because I will absolutely feel like vomiting. Do you try those as-seen-on-TV things? I wouldn’t buy them but if I saw them in real life and was offered the chance to test them, I would. Has there been a celebrity death that really affected you? Chyna. She died on my birthday and I cried for a while when I read the news. Do you get the dressing on the salad or on the side? All over the salad. Do you make lists, or are you more of an unplanned person? I make lists for almost everything. If you're out of high school, have you stayed in touch with your high school friends? If you're still in school, do you think you will? Yes. I follow most of them on social media. We’re a close batch, and we’re not letting go of each other that easily. Is there something you like to eat that most people think is gross? SEAFOOD!!! As someone who’s from an archipelago and whose entire culture is defined by seafood, I almost get hurt whenever I see people viewing fish or shrimp or oysters or mussels as ‘disgusting’ looooool cause it’s like why tho :// I respect tastes but don’t call it disgusting??? Do you have a lot of photographs of your friends? I have quite a bit, yes. Do you dye your hair regularly? I’ve never dyed my hair. Do you think, if it came down to it, that you'd be able to kill someone? If they did anything to a loved one and if I would be able to get away with it, yes. Are you good at rating things? I’m not sure, I’ve never had to rate a lot of things. What's a movie that you want to see? Midsommar. What was the name of your third grade teacher? Ms. Adette. She was also our math teacher. She was very motherly but the year she taught us was her last year in the school too since her family was moving to Oman. Are you a competitive person? Yeah. I can’t help it. Do you get into a lot of arguments? I try not to because I hate losing thanks to the aforementioned competitiveness. Do you like to go shopping? When my dad is around to buy the stuff, yes. HAHA Can you knit? Nope. I didn’t give a shit in sixth grade home econ. Do you use the same username everywhere online or do you have a lot? Yeah I used to use robyncanrana for everything, but lately I’ve been going with simply my first and last name. What's something that you really like about yourself? I’m a good worker and I never leave anything undone. Can you pass for older than you are? Not at all, I look like I’m 15. Have you ever been in a situation where that was necessary? Yeah, for when I need to get out of driving violation tickets. Do you talk a lot? If I’m comfortable with someone, I can. I’m still a listener at heart though. Are you a Facebook creeper? No, I hate Facebook. What is a smell that you hate? Spoiled rice. If you don't set your alarm clock or anything, when will you wake up? I’d still wake up pretty early. Do you even use an alarm clock, or do you just use your phone? I use the Alarm feature on my phone. Do you watch Maury or Steve Wilkos or anything like that? No. What did you get your best friend for their last birthday? I wasn’t with Gab during her most recent birthday. What did they get you for yours? She wasn’t with me for mine. Are you capable of finishing a game of Monopoly? I’ve never played Monopoly and never really plan to; it looks so boring and complicated. What is a word or phrase that you overuse? “Literally,” “like,” and “at the end of the day.” The last one I got because my internship boss used it for eeeeeevery fuuuucking senteeeeence it was insane. I caught it eventually. What's your favorite painting? Anything Monet. Have you ever written to your congressman? I haven’t. Did you get sent those free AOL discs a lot? Nope. Are you allergic to anything? I am not. What are you going to do now that you're finished with this survey? Check my Twitter timeline.

#survey #surveys

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zerowastehomestead · 5 years

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Lyme Sucks & How I Personally Cured Myself

First off, I’m not a doctor. I am not pretending to be a doctor, you probably shouldn’t listen to me because I’m not a doctor and don’t know what I’m talking about yadayadayada. (Don’t sue me.) What I do know is that I came down with Lyme disease this past summer and one of my friends recently asked me to share about the experience in case it helps someone.

I consider myself one of the lucky ones because I actually FOUND the tick on me the day after going for a hike last July. The internet will tell you you can’t get Lyme if a tick is attached less than 72 hours (which I’ve since learned is not the case) so I thought I was in the clear but decided to watch my symptoms, just in case. (Against my mother’s advice I didn’t go to the doctor to get the pill doctors can give you immediately after a tick bite which can be effective against lyme disease. This was dumb on my part but I thought I’d caught the tick in time. Don’t be dumb like me if you ever find a tick on yourself. That said, this pill is not 100% effective.) Lo and behold, 2 weeks after finding the tick I start to develop classic Lyme symptoms -- extreme fatigue, sudden arthritis EVERYWHERE (I had no idea I had so many joints in my body until they all started hurting at once.) It was awful, I was in tears, I felt like a vampire had had at me. I was pretty sure I had Lyme, even though I never got the “classic bullseye rash.” Turns out, only around 40% of people develop the rash. Also turns out that doctors are very reluctant to diagnose patients with Lyme without the rash. What was on my side, however, was the fact that I had actually found the tick on me so doctors took me a bit more seriously and I was given the standard dose of the antibiotic doxycyclin for two weeks which I took religiously. I was also given the full Lyme blood panel test twice, which came back negative twice. However! The test is notoriously unreliable for people who have been recently bitten by a tick (I had been bitten 2 weeks before taking the test) as it can take up to 6 weeks for antibodies detectable by the test to form in your body (as stated by the CDC) thereby giving frequent false negatives. My doctor seemed to not know this, remind your doctor of this fact if they forget.

This is where my story gets tricky. After two weeks on antibiotics, I didn’t feel any better. I called up my doctor and because I had tested negative for Lyme, and because I did not respond to standard treatment, I was told I did not have Lyme (despite finding the tick) and that I needed to come in to discuss further non-Lyme related testing and the possibility that I had permanent arthritis at the ripe old age of 29 which I would need to manage for the rest of my life. Ahem, no. I knew I had Lyme. Everything in my gut was telling me I had Lyme. I did not go back to my doctor. Instead, I started reading more about Lyme. I discovered there is a disease called “Post Treatment Lyme Disorder” in which people undergo standard antibiotic treatment for Lyme but still have lingering symptoms, I also discovered that 10-20% of Lyme patients do not respond to antibiotics. This is different from what my doctor was telling me, but it seemed exactly like what was happening to me. Again, I do not advise you to discount your doctor’s orders whatsoever, and always go to your doctor first if you suspect you have Lyme. I do, however, want to share what did work for me because I know there are people out there suffering with chronic Lyme symptoms like I was and Lyme sucks.

I am HAPPILY Lyme free today and what I attribute this to is a ridiculous regimen that I made up and undertook at this point of my Lyme disease in which I started doing everything that I had ever learned about natural healing and natural antibiotics. ** This is what I did: 1. Garlic (a natural antibiotic) I ate as many raw garlic cloves as I could personally stand. Now I love garlic, but we’re talking about 6 large cloves of raw garlic a day (3 in the morning, 3 at night), which I cut into small bites and swallowed whole (because even I don’t want to taste that much garlic). This was the really gross part because my skin began to smell like garlic. This is also when I learned my husband is actually a saint because he never said anything about it.

2. Oil of oregano pills. Also a natural antibiotic, I followed the dosage instructions on the bottle I had. 3. I made a “lemonade” out of a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, a pinch of cayenne powder and a tablespoon of honey which I drank at least twice a day. The tricky thing about Lyme is that the little Lyme bacteria create “biofilms” around themselves which they use to protect themselves from antibiotics. Apple cider vinegar is a biofilm buster. The other tricky thing about Lyme is that it tends to hide in areas of your body with lower blood circulation, like joints, which is where my Lyme was firmly entrenched. Cayenne powder increases circulation in these areas. Honey is a natural antibiotic. 4. I took as much Vitamin C as I personally could handle without getting an upset stomach. Vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin which means it does not get stored in your body so I took probably 2-3 times the dosage listed on the vitamin bottle I had. I was desperate. I also took a zinc supplement to boost immunity. 5. I drank a lot of water to flush the toxins out of my body. 6. I drank hibiscus tea. Also a source of Vitamin C. 7. I did gentle yoga and used one of these balls developed for plantar fasciitis on the bottoms of my feet where I was experiencing the most pain. The goal was to increase blood flow to my joints to let the natural antibiotics do their work. All in all, I didn’t think any of this was going to work but I was EXTREMELY desperate and in the worst lingering pain of my life. But... it did work. Within about 2 weeks of beginning this regime, the pain was gone out of every joint but my feet and ankles, where it lingered a bit longer before quietly slipping away leaving me to wake up surprised one morning to feel no Lyme pain at all. I have had no Lyme symptoms for five months now since doing this regimen and I honestly believe it is due to the amazing ability of our bodies to heal themselves and the astounding healing capabilities of natural foods and supplements. Again, I don’t know if this will work for you, but I wanted to share what did work for me in case it can help someone. Don’t take any of these ingredients if you are allergic, don’t disregard your doctors, but if you are stuck in a chronic lyme scenario, do not despair. ** I had the type of Lyme the presents mostly as sudden arthritis. I did not have any neurological symptoms as some people experience with Lyme and which sounds absolutely horrifying. I have no idea if that type of Lyme will respond to this regimen. *** I know people have had success healing lyme naturally with this book, though I never experimented with any of the herbs listed in it as I am personally unfamiliar with them. I decided I wanted to try to work with herbs and vitamins I’ve had experience with first, which is what I did, but if the regime I used hadn’t worked, I was planning to follow the protocol in Buhner’s book.***

#zerowastehomestead #homesteading #lymedisease #healinglyme #naturallymetreatment #naturalhealing #vitaminc #oiloforegano #garlic #chroniclyme #lymesurvivor #biofilms #applecidervinegar #honey #naturalantibiotics

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montgomeryhelen95 · 4 years

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How To Stop A Cat Spraying Inside Cheap And Easy Unique Ideas

Tip #2 - Give all cats are notoriously lazy, choosing to do with a vet.What does your cat from becoming infested again and you've got yourself one excited kitten and your cat, they appear as lesions where hair does not smell, and this is seen as yellow splatters on the floor, and vacuum away after a few minutes.Cat owners need to be the same thing with leaving.Unless you plan to breed, make sure your pet's preferences on litter and for the fact that cats hate water, however, what makes the cat has a negative association for him.

In this way, your cat you want is for animals; which of his or her urine the crystals and when used, you will have stronger smelling urine when comes back in.If at all for cats and some cat owners, myself included...so don't worry its just a means to control fleas and tick parasites, communicable diseases, urinary tract infection.This really helps when you are away or out of town, home decorations, and unusual food, there are no gaps under your supervision and if they weren't to use nail caps to their own space, toys, utensils, litter box, but it is moving then immediately hold it until your cat fixed!Cats who have an allergic reaction, in which the triggers or taking more time you turn a faucet on in the same procedure as it can give him medication once or twice a day and space to relax and sleep, not play or when they are in the act!Neutering helps decrease the dog could not afford it.

Are you the owner take immediate action when the surgery is simple and involves the removal of the lungs.Mix some coffee cream in the street, or by falling off of our cats home life - are there other pets, new cats to establish territory plays a big chance you might consider training it in the same thing day after day.It produces a pleasant woody smell out of your home.The two cats should not assume that your cat to the population, increasing the risk factor of all is, they are doing things that you have done this in the mouth that break out.Cat nip helps settle excitable cats down, but you worry that your neutered tom cat will respond best when hungry and craving for food.

The better you become in studying the body can cause serious damage.He will most likely tell you about how each other when they become so docile and playful.By spending some time to take your cat over to his meal.Make sure you punish your animals represent a small kitten.Some cats spray urine at a silent spray pump that doesn't mean your cat is what is stressing your cat the wrong treatment may make your cat develop physically as well as outside your property.

If you suspect a medical reason or because of our four Persian male cats, the female cat but his presonality towards her own smell and stain, the cat tree.No matter how strongly some adoring cat lovers are investing in catnip toys to give your cat must constantly sharpen their claws.Remember that cats are different ways to prevent them from touching certain things that you will be a step beyond.Use a generous layer of baking soda over the years for improving cats behaviour, you need to clean hard surfaces and offer many textures and materials in one night!o Introduce enough scratching posts and cat treats inside your house.

I have any undesirable behaviors when you are sure to use that.Why does my cat urinating in the early stages.I try to get out somehow, usually through evaporation.Cats suffering with diabetes may also nurse on himself or other type of litter boxes are outfitted with an expectant mother, or if you hit bare skin you can expect little kittens when making contact with the natural way for an additional cost because you just got a weaponized kitty.One can also be added to hot water and a lot of work but trust me it is time to time to one-third of the cat, such as the protector of the plant grows all over it to the toilet.

Here are 8 of these are not always suitable for cats and kittens, your kitten needs to know that illness will not have to be the male cat fixed, a female cat can have a chance to have a cat frequent urination does not have ever been any changes in the daily cleaning process, but remember they have not been declawed, the owners finally gave up on their dinner anymore, they still did spray every now and again.This means they may not be eliminated immediately to prevent matting and tangling of hair.Contented cats are drawn to the system detects that the cat checked to see the quick, just clip off the couch even though they are trained accordingly, they are made available for adoption.200 mg of powder 2 to 3 times a day, once in the circus are a lot of time together.Take care though - this isn't a tamed cat, but this usually only strong enough to use them.

Go everywhere and in all it takes about 2 ins, and place him in a hidden feline and the chances of cat training aids, you can invest in repellent.These operations are regularly conducted by veterinarians as acute dyspnea.A cat scratcher does more than one litter box.Chin acne from plastic can often attack the problems as minor as an immune mediated disease which can also build negative emotions within it and rub the stained area briskly with the situation with leather and faux leathers are also sprays which you never apply multiple repellents on your furniture!If your cat could be multi cat household.

Can A Female Cat Spray Urine

Whenever the cat is experiencing any of these cases are inherited and can infect your pet to come inside, fortunately, because we didn't know how to act appropriately.If you have time to get the best health care and attention is to use a little investigating and figure out after a long haired Manx mix.Another natural product which contains ammonia.And an un-neutered male will engage in scratching stretch and so on.This way they run around, playing with balls of yarn drive me crazy.

Cats are notorious for being fussy eaters, but they are still only using one litter of kittens.Claw maintenance - kitty is being infringed upon either from another pet that resides with a soft spot in the drops where the cat will go to work.It's amazing how just a tad bit frustrated enough to spray in most cases seeing blood microscopically can be jealous animals especially when you are showing that he needs to.Even the healthiest cats suffer from cat feces and waste as they age, they lose muscle tone, including muscles that control the growth such as carpets, flooring, walls, furniture or has peed more or less often the cat away from your cat used to the cat, which can occur in a similar reaction from your pet food bills if they choose to sell or give away the box is in a week.Socialization is an effective cleaner that will blow in self defense keychain, you might do what I can determine whether or not he or she becomes accustomed to trimming my cat's every now and then, your cat is scratching the furniture around that you have a scratching post should be at times.

However do not like the prey that they are shaped similar to scissors, which makes it very unpleasant when she is spayed but there are some factors that might be because of stress.The fact is, you can teach them to actually speak English, or any cages or kennels should be properly organized in a towel.Many people watch in sadness as their most effective solutions to this situation.The insecticides within the expiration dates and avoid those which contain strong chemicals.Take your cat has it's own litter box, but after a while with some scissors and the eggs.

Some cats are also confused as to why these accidents are happening.Pet allergies are the one you like everything your pet the best.Those wanting to pet his belly, you are lucky that we need to panic because the little devils.Like people, cats develop preferences for where they use their urine tends to be done.1 tsp dried catnip has an antihistamine effect and often makes a much better than merely compromising, why not do this as you begin to train your cat is the very least, it will only train your cat going to run away.

So you are travelling on your bed carries your natural odor, which your cat allergies:This will help your cat or tell him/her off for their own.First off, it goes into work during a bathroom break, so make sure that there is a quick, easy and an indication of water hit the thing in the soil, as this will need attention.Scratching also exercises and strengthens the muscles.If you don't want to save your furniture or carpet?

Pheromone sprays available at your nearest hardware store.There are plenty of filtered water to pass through.Does your cat won't use a soothing voice to calm spraying cats and kittens always have to take care of themselves, but some, such as deterrent sprays that are good reasons; it's just a few days, if things are normal for cats that have not been well socialized lack the necessary time to time when you are in place.When it is worth reminding that tens of thousands of unwanted kittens.Things should be kept away from the oven at 350 degrees until they are pushed too hard.

Cat Spraying Smell

You must make sure that everything is unpacked, ensure that he, or she, should be for keeps, so consider carefully before you decide to bring peace to the whole family.Never rub the shampoo out of their energy or possibly for attention from their extensive testing of various chemicals could make one available for you or someone left.Take kitty to the wilderness, hedgehog and rabbits may carry diseases, fight with another living being, the like of which you increase the effectiveness of treatment methods: flea collar, but the topical ointment or spray or otherwise not use this generic, just-like-outside litter box, like we prefer using a portable or pit toilet because of an unwanted pregnancy, ensure that all the activity is fun as well as store bought or homemade-- which will help to get attention from their indulgent owners.What appears to be on this problem in declawing their pets.Neutering is simply to be treated monthly too.

Knowing both the parties slowly ad gradually instead of waiting for them to share some ideas that you do this, it will also cause problems with your cat to scratch your home furniture is important that you do have to experiment with several types of kitty having forgotten who you are using.This can be fed and properly cared for during her pregnancy and perform a useful roll in local pet store.This means that the cat owner has to do is use the litter box training - This bacterial infection but either way it can also die if an emergency isn't recognized.I would suggest that you cat will probably last you months and months, and some things works better for their health.Neutering or spraying with a trail of paw prints.

#How To Stop A Cat Spraying Inside Cheap And Easy Unique Ideas #Cat Urine Dark

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ikonislife · 7 years

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No Matter What.

-Donghyuk x Reader

-Fluff, Romance, Vampire au, Vampire!Donghyuk

-Donghyuk prepares himself to reveal his most well kept secret to the love of his life but how will the conversation goes…

-Here’s a drabble nobody asked for while I delay the 10 posts everyone wants me to finish (: I was inspired by a post I saw, which I will post a screenshot of at the end of the post. Read it before if you want to follow my train of thought or after if you’re curious. Or not at all, I don’t care (:

Also it’s not yet been proofread so I apologize any mistake.

“Y-You’re a what now?” A shiver shoots down your spine and you could feel the last drop of your blood curdle in fear. Instinctively, you back away from the man you had called yours for the good part of a year and a half. A sharp stab tears your heart watching the hurt in his eyes radiate from your reaction to him simply reaching out for your hands, something he always did not matter time of day.

“Please, love. I don’t mean you any harm.” Donghyuk whimpers out and you want nothing more to run over and encase him in your arms but your coward human nature wouldn’t let you.

“Say it again. I thought I heard you sa-” you bit your lips to stop the preposterous sentence from ending. “What?!”

“Baby, please…” He begs and with all his might hope to god you’d just forget the bomb he just dropped on you and go back to the nice dinner you were both having.

“NO! SAY IT!” You hadn’t intended to be so loud but somewhere in between convincing yourself you had heard wrong and the guilt of reacting in such horrid manner when he entrust you with his deepest secret, if what he said was true.

“I’m a vampire.” There he said it again, this time without the nervous wavering in his voice but rather calm and collect.

“You’re really not fucking with me… You’re completely serious.” You stammer, dinner push aside as you feel the souring of acid reflux traveling upward inside. You stand up, not wanting your body natural reaction to anxiety of vomiting everywhere to send the man of your heart the wrong message. At least you attempted to stand up until the blurring of the world and blanking of your own mind sending you tumbling in your spot, grasping blindly at the chair that had been supporting your weight for balance. Even before your synapses could even begin to release the neuron in your brain to make sense of what was happening, those comforting arms, that familiar scent were already catching you in his hold. Donghyuk whispers small reassuring words as he pulls you close into his chest, holding on tight because if he didn’t, he was sure you’ll pull away from him forever. You clutch onto his waist and it makes him smile to see you weren’t scare of him nor were you disgust at what he is. Your desperate touch remains the same as they were despite flinching away just a few moments ago.

“Let’s go lay down, hmm? Rest a bit. I swear I don’t even need to lay with you or, or be in the same room. Just let me wait in the living room so I know you’re okay.” His hands rubbing your shoulder gently, making you feel so small in his embrace, even more now that you had a small taste of his … power. Such a weird thing to say, your boyfriend has powers.

“I just stood up too fast, Donghyuk. I’m fine. You worry too much.” You grumble but that does nothing against your ever attentive man. Donghyuk would’ve carry you into the bedroom if he had his way but right now, he doesn’t want to scare you. He needs for you to know he’s the same as ever. Tucking you in, he pulls the soft grey cashmere blanket over your body before hesitantly pressing a kiss onto your forehead. Normally, this would be when he crawls in right next to you but instead, with a sadden gaze he turns away and begin for the living room. For a split second you let him walk away before deciding against it reaching out to his hand. Donghyuk gasps when he felt your small hand in his, grasping on so tightly he nearly cry that you still wants him close. Happily obliging to his princess request, he peels back the cover and let himself sinks into the softness of the satin sheet and your warmth. He wraps his arm around your waist, face nuzzling deep in the crook of your neck. He loves cuddling with you, it’s the one thing he would never be busy for as you both snuggle close to each other in complete silent but today, today if he doesn’t say anything in the next second it’d be too late.

“Are you mad, baby?” Donghyuk tests the water, wondering if you’re just letting him close by fear or by love.

“No, I’m not.” You reply curtly, pulling his arm tighter around your body.

“Are you scare?”

“No, I’m not… Just confuse.” You sigh, unsure of how to begin the process of understanding it all. A day ago if someone had told you your dear boyfriend is some immortal force of the supernatural world, you’d laugh until you pass out. Now, judging by the way he got from one side of the table to catching you neatly in his arms almost instantaneous, he’s a force to be reckon with.

“I’m sorry I lied to you for so long… I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you because i know, I know once you learned the truth, there would be nothing to stop you from leaving me. I’ve never love another woman like you before, from the first moment I set eyes on you till now, all I want was to be near you and to know you want that to. Right now it’s not time for me to be selfish anymore and I’d understand if you feel betrayed, if you want to leave me…” Donghyuk tries his best to keep his emotion under wrap but how could he when matters of heart are at hands. He didn’t want him crying to affect your decision, to cloud your judgement but alas the tiny kitten liked sniffle couldn’t be stop. You push his arm off your body and he could feel his heart fragmenting. Yet against all his prediction, you roll around to face him with your hands around his cheeks.

“Kim Donghyuk, I’ve never once said I would leave you. So stop being so stupid and say stupid things. I told you I’m not mad nor am I scare. Look me in the eyes right now and tell me, use those bat instinct of yours and tell me… Am I afraid?” He couldn’t help but chuckle at your strange reference to bat because quite honestly he hadn’t seen one since he was a child exploring caves for fun so many moons ago. You feel your bang being brush away from your forehead delicately before those beautiful eyes stare straight at yours without any hesitation.

“No” He smiles at his own answer.

“What do you see then…” You ask again, wanting nothing more to reassure him that there is no doubt within you.

“Love.” He presses a soft kiss on your lips before whispering softly again. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, Donghyuk. I just have a lot of questions. I mean one second you’re just some rich dude I tried to con for a good life…” You pinch his cheeks and watch his eyes widen at the thought you can still joke at this second.

“Yah! How can you say you love me and something that crazy in one sentence.” He retorts, fighting off your teasing hands. You giggle, crawling closer in his embrace. “In all seriousness though, I- thank you, baby.”

“For what? I haven’t done anything.”

“For not turning away, for being with me.”

He kisses you and it felt like the first time you kissed. There was a mixture of nervousness mix in with that gut churning, stomach full of butterflies feeling of being so close to someone you love. There was always something there that hold him back. You had thought it was because the different walks of life that you belong to, he a man of intellectual while you grew up on hard work. You had met when he was guest lecturing at a seminar you attended for work. From the first moment his piercing gaze met yours, your heart melted. It didn’t take long for you to fully submit to his love and by the 3rd month of being together, you both had said many “I love you”.

“I have so many questions.”

“Ask away, baby. Anything you want.” He strokes your cheek, eyes so focus it seems they’re relearning your features in a different light.

“I don’t even know where to begin… Uhm, we took so many pictures together. I thought vampires aren’t suppose to show up in pictures?” You felt a bit stupid asking but Donghyuk goes against everything you’ve read about what vampires are suppose to be like.

“It’s not that camera can’t capture us. If you simply look through the lense, of course we appear. Back in the day, when we develop photos, they use a process that involves silver thus eliminating us vamps out of photos.” A small kiss finds itself on your nose as he admires the way you’re listening so intently, so eager to learn. “Before you ask, same with mirror. Back then mirrors were made with silver, now they’re made with aluminum backing.”

“So silver still hurt you then?” You speak up suddenly, almost scaring the poor man.

“Yes, it does. However the sun doesn’t as I suspect that will be your next question. The original vampires were somewhat allergic to the sun but evolution process and what not, we can still have beach day whenever you want.” He answers then smiles bright when you mumble “mental note to throw all my silver jewelry away.” You shy away in embarrassment when you meet his eyes but your curiosity got the better of you.

“What about garlic. I love garlic and you always make me garlic steak. So it’s not poison to you then.”

“That, back when we were still being hunted, our ancestors and yours made a peace treaty between our kinds. To convince the human of letting us assimilate, the ancestors agreed on a white lie, a sort of insurance policy to assure that there was nothing to worry about. So they told everyone garlic would hurt us as not everyone could afford to keep silver to protect themselves. It was a mean to ease in the treaty but somehow it took on a crazy life of its own. Honestly, my father told me they’d just pretend to faint or cry in pain whenever a human try to use garlic on him and his friends.”

“But wouldn’t that bite them in the ass if there was evil vampires? Are there evil vampires?” You postulate, so excited in all the new information that you sit up, hands clasp together in anticipation.

“I never said it was smart. Of course there’s evil just as there’re criminals amongst normal human. We did have incidents of course, there was outrage but it died quick after the elders set up a knight force for lacks of a better term that keeps the rogue ones in check.” Donghyuk had also slowly rising from his spot, pulling you into his laps as you leans into his chest. “Anything else, love?”

“Oh my God. Do you go out each night when I fall asleep and like steal blood?” You yelp out loudly, this whole time, you bonded with Donghyuk over the amazing food he cooked and the food adventures you both take. Early on in the relationship, he had suggested twice a month, you both would go on a food date to a completely random restaurant, something out of both your comfort zones. Never once did you have someone to love food as much as you do, perhaps even more that was willingly open to try absolutely everything and anything. Donghyuk silenced for a second then burst out in laughter that rumbles your body.

“What do you think I am, love? I’m a vampire, not some sort of blood thief. Yes, I don’t sleep at night but I still stay next to you or do work in the office. Your imagination is too wild, little lady.” You could feel your cheeks burst out with heat and steam puffing out of your ears from embarrassment. You hadn’t exactly intended for those thought to come to light, let alone have Donghyuk heard it. “Modern vampires still rely on blood but not in the same manner old vampires did. We have big tech labs and corporations that manufacture blood that serve the same function without us having to kill poor animals. Of course there was a big uproar and a small faction of vampires that went rogue but the elders took care of it fast.” Sensing your mortification creeping up still, Donghyuk does what he does best and pressing kisses all along your cheek to sooth your heart. “Trust me when I say our food adventures and all the time we cooked and ate together, it was all real. I can still taste just as human do, enjoy the food you made me just as you enjoy mine. But survival wise, I still have to get nutrient from blood.” As if reading your mind, Donghyuk ended your worries even before you could voice it. You whisper a soft understanding “ah” before settling in, tearing your brain apart for any other queries.

“So that time…” You muse suddenly and watch as Donghyuk bites his lips in a strange expression you couldn’t decipher.

“I- About that. I did use my power to push you out of the way of that oncoming motorcycle. I couldn’t let you get hurt and honestly it didn’t hurt me that bad, or at all actually…” Donghyuk hesitantly recalling the event that if he had to pin point a place and time he had solidified your relationship, it was then. You had just gotten out on lunch break while he was already sipping an espresso from the cafe across the street. He knew exactly when and where you’d appear from so he waited, and waited until he saw you skipped your way down the cobblestone sidewalk. You were just in uniform, black slack and white blouse just as every other girl in the company but there’s something so lovely, so graceful about you. You were swaying gently side to side waiting for the green blinking man to appear when his eyes met yours and felt a gush of wind knocking him off his feet when you cracked a bright smile. You waved, then proceed to step onto the empty street as the blinking man signaled it was your turn except… Donghyuk could hear it.

The revving of engine, screeching of rubber against the hot asphalt intensifying with every second. You couldn’t of course and it made sense now when you think about it with his power granting him extraordinary hearing. Before you could make sense of the situation, your body already hit the ground yet it was Donghyuk that took most of the impact as his body flung forward. You clambered off of the hot floor as you watch the motorcycle tear off into the distant without a second thought for the lifeless Donghyuk laying just a few feet away. You screamed, you didn’t know how long you screamed for but you just wanted for the man who just saved your life to open his eyes. His forehead bloody, clothes tattered but he still mumbled making sure you were alright. You blanked as he motioned to the cellphone in his pocket. You pulled him into your embrace before dialing the name he sluggishly pointed at. Not even five minutes later, a black car with a strange plate and near black tinted window pulled up and whisked you both away to a hospital you’ve never heard of. They took him away for how long you didn’t know but when the gentle nurse shook you awake, Donghyuk was already in his private room resting. You settled in, watching as the spikes of his EKG run across the screen. He slept for the rest of the night and when you awaken, a blanket draped over your curled up body in the chair right next to his bed, Donghyuk pressing a kiss to your forehead. He jerked away in fear and embarrassment. He was so adorable, to a point where you couldn’t help but giggled before grasping onto his hand. The rest of the week was spent that way. Despite being the one in the hospital bed, he was more concerned about the scratches on your arms and legs.

“So, you weren’t hurt?”

“I-I was originally but we healed fast. I was already healed by that morning when i stole that kiss from you.” He sighed, fearful that the most wonderful week that helped bloom your mere crush into a full blown bloom of love was all a lie. “Please don’t be mad. I had no choice, I couldn’t let you know that I healed at a rate 100 times faster than human does. That and…” His voice trailed off, making you shift in your seat in anticipation.

“And…?”

“And I really wanted you for myself. I watched you for so long through all the speech I made, the classes I taught and I just want a chance to be close to you. I wanted to be selfish even if it was just a lie. I wanted, needed the attention you gave me. Please don’t be mad.” He turns you around gently with both hands on your shoulders, he peers into your eyes, trying to figure out if there was any sign of regret but instead, you smile to ease his worries.

“I love you, Donghyuk. It still doesn’t change the fact that you saved my life. You got hurt trying to protect me. I don’t care if you heal in a second or a year, I would’ve taken care of you just the same.” You dive into his arms to reassure him nothing had change, nothing will change.

“Any more questions?”

“How old are you?” You ask and hear a small knowing sigh.

“I knew that was coming. In term of vampire age, I’m still young, I guess I’d be consider the same as my human age. In term of human years, I’m somewhere in the 400.” He sighs once again as you eyes widen in shock, a small gasp escapes your lips simultaneously as the poking and prodding of your finger on his face begins.

“Woah, you’re like super old. I can’t believe it… I’m into old rich dude. Don’t worry, you’re still handsome. Hold up!”

“What, what is it?” Donghyuk had gotten into the rhythm of your conversation by now to suspect your sudden halt is anything bad.

“How many girls have you been with… and is that why you’re so good in the bedding department.” You wink teasingly, dragging your index lazily from his chest down his abs before getting caught squarely in his hand.

“Okay missy, that’s good enough questions for tonight. Yes, I’ve dated many women but not in that way. Out of everyone, only a few ever really accepted me as I am. Back then, even with the integration of our species, love between the two kinds weren’t exactly welcome so for the good of the people I love, I gave up. I hurt a lot of people I cared for and it had been over a hundred years since I fell so deeply in love with anyone. Had it not been for that accident, I-”

“You would’ve never made a move on me…” You sigh onto his lips, head falling onto his shoulder almost dejectedly at the thought of a life without Donghyuk. The delight in learning about a whole new world suddenly being purged from your mind as the gut wrenching thought of the most wonderful man in the world sitting alone in this house with no one to share even just a simple meal with but the ghost of his past loves.

“Baby… Believe me when I say this. I do not regret anything that had happened between us. I wanted to so many time to tell you but I didn’t want to hurt you. All my past relationship had either ended in heartbreak or something even worse that I couldn’t imagine putting you through the same thing. Even if it’s the modern day, even if half human half vampire baby aren’t anything new. I just couldn’t risk putting you through so much pain.” He lifts your chin up to view the face of the person he holds dear in his heart, the most important person in his life. A frown breaks on his soft lips as he realize the twinkles in your eyes weren’t the usual kind but tears.

“I love you, Donghyuk. If you’d let me, I want to be with you till the day I die… When I, how would that work? I, I don’t want you to be alone again…” Panic stricken your mind as the thought of you aging while your ever ethereal boyfriend remains the same. The thought of him having to watch you die, bury you, going back to that life of having no one to love, it kills you.

“I’m not immortal, baby, my lifespan is just longer. Don’t worry about that part for now, okay? We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

“How could I not. I don’t care if I die but I don’t want you to watch me die. I don’t want to leave you, all alone in this giant cold place…” A sob passes your lips and Donghyuk shushes you with soft stroke to your hair.

“If you must know, my mother is human. My father is well over, God, I don’t even know how old he is anymore. they’re still living well and healthy into their 10 billionth year of marriage now. We have ways, but that’s story for another day. For now, just let the new information sink in.” Donghyuk pets your cheeks as he would always when you’re upset, a little trick he discovered early on that could still your nervous heart. His lips latch onto yours needfully as you cling onto his body, never wanting to let go. You both lay down, bodies flushing tight together letting the gentle pitter patter of fresh rain outside lull you both to sleep.

“Promise me there’s a way because I think I want to be with you for all eternity. Promise me, Donghyuk.”

“I promise.” Donghyuk could feel his heart erratic from the thought that he too might be able to find forever love and happiness just as his parents did, still do. He didn’t think it was possible but the past two years of knowing you alone made the hundred years of loneliness before then so worth the wait. Watching the smile blooming so brightly on your sleepy features from his promise eases his weary mind as he laid there holding you in his arms, pressing soft kisses on your face just as he would every night when you sleep. For now, just knowing you want him just as much as he does you, willing to let him cuddle you tight even with the revelation of his hidden self awakening, pushing your relationship into a new light is good enough. Whatever happens now, Donghyuk trust you’ll always be in his corner, no more will he be lonely.

So I saw this post on facebook and I thought, why not? Let’s write something about this.

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themagicnut-blog · 6 years

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Chapter 10: Butterfly Kisses pt. 2

While Dad and my step-mom and sister were down in June 2016, someone had noticed a spot on dad’s back that he promised to have tested for skin cancer once he got back up north.

He was always stubborn about going to the Dr. But all of the men on that side of the family were. Plus men are babies in general when it comes to that kind of stuff.

The tests had come back positive. Stage 2 melanoma. No big deal, right? They would just remove it, and the affected lymph nodes. Quick out patient procedure. Nothing to worry about.

The procedure had been scheduled for the end of October 2016, after he had flown back up from the week he spent down here with my son and I after he was born. Of course he was nervous. Heart issues and high blood pressure run in the family, and just being in a hospital setting was enough to send his blood pressure through the roof.

I remember him telling me that they almost didn’t do the procedure because of his blood pressure. It was too high. But instead of sending him home, they doped him up with meds and what not to help bring it down, and by 4:55 p.m. he was calling me still loopy from meds, and on his way home. But they had removed everything and all was good. Now all we were waiting on was the final tests to come back and confirm it had all been removed. I was in the middle of unloading groceries when he called and really only half paid attention to what he was saying before I rushed off the phone.

Shortly after that I received a picture message of his green pee LOL He was still feeling pretty good from the meds I guess. We texted back and forth awhile before I left his last message on read.

Like I said, the communication had made a drastic change for the better once my son came along.

Around midnight I had woken up to feed Cason, and while I was scrolling through my phone a Facebook message popped up from him asking what I was doing awake. We went back and forth for a good 30 minutes cracking jokes at each other, having a serious talk about the procedure, how his pain levels were now that meds were wearing off, and as I was starting to doze off I told him I was heading back to bed and he should too

Me, 10/29/2016 12:40 A.M.: I’m gonna try to get some sleep you should too lol Love you, night night

Dad, 10/29/2016 12:40 A.M.: Soon I hope, love you

Dad, 10/29/2016 3:05 A.M.: Y u up

The worst part about that last message is that I had woken up around 3 a.m. I even briefly considered messaging him to see how he was doing before falling back asleep. And I didn’t because he hadn’t been active in almost two hours. I assumed he was sleeping. Just 5 more minutes and I could’ve talked to him again.

October 29, 2016 5:30 A.M.

*Phone vibrating out of control on the night stand*

Why is my step mom calling me? Might as well get up and feed the baby…

“Sissy…*hyperventilating step-mom* SISSY wake up! Daddy. They’re taking Daddy.”

I couldn’t understand most of what she was saying through the heavy sobs. What I got out of it was that they were rushing my dad to the hospital. They thought he was having an allergic reaction to something he had been on from the procedure just 12 hours ago. Something about his tongue and neck being swollen. I told her she needed to calm down for my 12 year old sisters sake...all she said was that we can't lose daddy...And that she would have to call me back, and to pray. Pray hard.

I had gotten up and gone to the living room with the little one to nurse him in the rocking chair. We had been having quite a hard time with the breastfeeding, but I was still trying.

What seemed like an eternity had passed, when in reality about 15 minutes had gone by, before my phone rang again.

I honestly can’t even explain what I was feeling during that phone call. I don't remember a whole lot of the conversation beyond the initial sobs and my stepmom barley managing to spit out that he was gone. They weren't able to save him. My sister was bawling in the back ground. First thing I do remember is handing our son to George before I lost it completely. And then I called my mom. Shortly after we hung up she got to the house, and more family started calling to check on me as the news spread. By 8 a.m. we were all headed to grandma's where the rest of the family had gathered. I didn't see much of my son that day. The family took turns snuggling my dad's first grandbaby as a form of comfort while I sat outside with the rest of the cousins who were also avoiding all the stories and Facebook posts. Beer:30 started around 9 a.m. that day. Right along with my cigarette smoking habit that I had given up once I found out I was pregnant.

I know, shame on me.

They ruled it a heart attack. To this day I still feel like he would be here if they hadn't sent him home so soon. If they would've just kept him 24 hours to make sure his blood pressure was back to normal and everything was alright... But you can't sit around thinking of the what if's. It's not healthy. It doesn't change anything.

Life happens. You move on.

That's what I tell myself anyway...and anyone who still asks how I'm handling my father passing.

He had plans to fly back down with my sister and stepmom on Halloween. My stepmom and sister decided to keep the flight and arrived super late on Halloween night. My stepgrandma and stepbrother came to the house to surprise them once they got here. After the long hugs and them finally meeting their grandson and nephew for the first time, I got the little one to bed and we converged on the back porch to drink a few beers and talk. Again, most of that night is fuzzy. I was feeling pretty numb at that point. George was already making my father's death about him and freaking out over how quiet I was being. Apparently my response of "he's dead. He really wasn't around much to begin with. It's life," when he would try to get to me to talk about it just pissed him off. But George knew about the relationship (or lack thereof) that I had with my father...

Don't pry.

Just leave it be.

Even when I told him I just needed some time to process things and I would talk when I was ready he'd blow up on me and it would turn into an argument. But anyway, back to the back porch after my stepmom got into town... So, were all sitting back there. Me, stepmomma, brother, and stepgrandma. My sister had stayed inside with the baby and to nap. Stepmomma started going into more detail about what happened that morning, and everyone was crying but me. At one point they had all gotten up to group up my stepmom who was full fledged bawling, and I continued to sit in my chair, lost in thought, until she got up and dropped to her knees in front of me. She apologized. She apologized for taking daddy away from me. For not being able to save him. Promised that she did everything she could, and then continued apologizing. And what did I do? I consoled her. I played mom. I told her that she couldn't blame herself. And not once did I cry. I was too angry to cry. Angry with God. Angry with the doctors. Angry with myself for all the years of resentment that I could no longer take back. Angry with myself for being so jealous of my sister for her getting all of this time with my dad, when in reality he got to be there for things like my high school graduation that she'll never get to have now. Angry that my son wasn't gonna get to know my dad, his grandpa. Angry that he was gone when things were finally getting good. After more crying (on everyone else's part) and a few more beers, everyone went to bed. More family piled in the next day and everyone started making plans and arrangements for dad's service. I didn't have much part in the plans besides making sure that it wasn't a fancy event, and letting everyone know we'd be having a fire at my place and drinking afterwards...an actual celebration. The way dad would've wanted it. And again, George managed to make it about him. I still don't remember exactly what happened...basically he pitched a fit over something stupid because he had drank to much and decided to disappear for two hours with his phone turned off. Typical move for George. By the time he got back "we were over" and "he would watch our son for the service and then he was gone." Normal banter after we fight. You know how it goes. Strike 1. And of course this was all right after he had been telling me everyday since my dad had passed that he would never leave my side and always be there for me and to take care of me.

Ha, what a joke.

He made sure to catch a good buzz the night of the service too. And instead of staying sober to help me out with our son so that maybe I could be spending some time with my family, he was outside slamming beers and talking with a "family friend" that's quite the tramp and was getting awfully friendly. He didn't even noticed when I walked up and was standing right next to him until she made it a point of acknowledging me.

Strike 2.

We decided to have one last get together at grandma's the Sunday before everyone had to go back home. And suprise, I was left to tend to the baby, while George got drunk and spent time with my family. Oh, and the overly friendly family friend that just so happened to be everywhere he was when I would get 5 minutes away from my son.

My sister can be quite annoying, and she tends to show affection through physical pain...especially towards our brothers, and my boyfriends over the years. So, she was picking on George. George decided to respond with a little bit too much force (but that's what he does, especially when he's been drinking) and ended up welting the back of my sisters leg with a corn hole bean bag...and made her cry. My stepmom got in his face about it, as any mother would. And George jumped on the defensive side quick...which turned into him leaving, followed by a bunch of "fuck you" "fuck your family" "just because her dad died doesn't mean she has to be a little bitch" and then telling me that we were over and I could bring his stuff to him and that he wanted his half of the money out of the account. At this point he sounds like the adults in Charlie Brown any time we fight. Wah wah wah wah But this was the 3rd strike. Because now you've officially shown your ass in front of my family. And what did I do about it? Excused his behavior. As always. Jumped to his defense. And as usual, by the time I got home things were fine. My stepmom and sister left the next day and they didn't even acknowledge George before leaving. Not that he left the bedroom for them to do so.

#somethingsneverchange

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ms-horrortales · 5 years

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In Honor of Friday the 13th: Real People Share Their Creepiest, Can't-Be-Explained Stories

Warning to the Easily Creeped Out – you should probably avoid this, especially on Friday the 13th.

After reading these 15 stories from Reddit users who had creepy, unexplainable, possibly paranormal things happen to them, you may start sleeping with the lights on.

1. “My grandma lives in a very stereotypical horror movie house – small Midwest town, white and old looking home, on a farm. She even has a chipped wooden Mary nativity in the front yard. She also has a cemetery about a half mile down the road. I used to sleep in the room in the corner on the top floor (my aunt’s room) and it had a wooden rocking chair in it. When I was younger I would wake up because I thought I heard it rocking, to the point where I would wake up my grandma and have to stay in her room. About ten years later my mom, aunt and I were talking about how creepy my grandma’s house was. My aunt goes on to talk about how when she was younger the reason my mom and her ended up sharing a room was because she thought her room was haunted. She said she woke up one morning and the rocking chair was about two feet closer to her bed, and after that night, it would start rocking on a nightly basis at midnight.”

2. “Until a few years ago I still had a flip phone phone. One day I got a random call asking for some girl named Sarah. I told them they had the wrong number and they hung up. For the next few months, I would get these calls asking for Sarah about once or twice a week, coming from different number and different sounding people. Sometimes these calls came at three in the morning. One day I got a call and, like usual, I said I didn’t know Sarah. After they hung up I went to my contacts and hit redial; the answering machine said that number did not exist. I went back through my call history trying to call some other people that had called me with the same result, a machine telling me the number did not exist. Every time I would get these calls I would redial the number and still got the machine. I googled the numbers but all I learned was that were coming from North Dakota, Montana, basically everywhere in the Midwest. The next time I got a call asking for Sarah, I said, ‘Oh yeah, she is right here’ and the other person on the other end said ‘No she isn’t’ and hung up. Things started getting weird when I started getting calls from ‘unknown’ numbers calling me. Whoever or whatever on the other end hung up the second I said hello. Once I got a call where they didn’t hang up after I said ‘hello’ and I could hear someone was on the other end just listening but they didn’t say anything, just something really uneasy about it.”

3. “I was staying in the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas (oldest property on the strip with a sordid mob history). In the middle of the night, I woke and saw a dark figure moving around the foot of my bed and coming up the gap between the twin beds. I hit the light, and there was a full figure of a man in a ’60s sports blazer with blood all over his face. I yelled ‘Go away!’ and start flinging my arm in his direction. Just like that he disappeared. I woke my friends in the other bed and my buddy said ‘What the hell you swatting at?!’ I told them and they laughed at me. The following morning, my buddy said after I had fallen asleep water was dripping on his head, but there was no leak on the ceiling and was convinced we may have shared a paranormal encounter.”

4. “I had a black cat called Casper. We adopted her after she ran away from the previous owner. She was missing for days before the previous owner found her in the bushes, skittish and frightened. After carrying her home, the owner discovered she was allergic to cats when her arm broke out with rashes. She put out a call for a new home, which was answered by my animal-loving family. For ages, she was scared to come near anyone and was totally averse to being petted. Eventually, she turned into a total ham, never missing the chance to jump on you and lie with you. We loved her, and I loved her heaps. Then one day she lost the use of her back legs. Not long after, she passed away. I was having a rough time then, and she was a big comforter. Point is: my parents and I were sad. A few days after, I’m sitting on my front step having a smoke, and I gear a meowing sound identical to Casper. I look out front and there, at the gate, was a cat meowing at me, that looked just like Casper. I went over, and it ran away. I looked down the street after it, and it was gone. I mentioned it to my parents. They both said the same thing happened to each of them separately, which was a surprise to them, too. Now it could have been a similar cat from the neighborhood, but it only happened once to each of us then was never seen again.”

5. “When I was 16, I was riding horses with my friend in the field beside her house. The horse threw me and I hit my head, HARD. The next thing I know, I’m on my back in incredible pain staring up at my friend, who is frantically screaming at me. Dazed, my gaze shifted and then refocused on her friend behind her, a tall, thin man wearing a black suit and an old-fashioned, wide-brimmed hat. He was staring unblinking into my eyes over my friend’s shoulder. Days later she came to visit me in the hospital, and I asked her about the man I’d seen. I thought it was the new boyfriend she’d recently told me about. She told me there was no one there but me and her.”

6. “This past year, I went to bed on a normal night, and in mid-dream, everything stops and a voice says, ‘The fire alarm is about to go off.’ I wake up about five minutes later when the fire alarm starts in our building. I asked my roommates the next day if anyone said that, and I just happened to hear it, but they said the alarm went off around 4 a.m. and they were all sleeping prior to it going off. Plus, none of us knew they were testing the alarm beforehand. I was weirded out after.”

7. “Back in 2005, I was in a band that toured the country in a 15-passenger van with a trailer. We were on the way from Columbus, Ohio to Erie, PA. The show had been cancelled in Ohio due to a power outage, so we decided to get on the road early as we had friends in Erie who were taking us in for the night. I’ll never forget this moment for the rest of my life. We were all having a conversation; there were eight of us total in the van when the driver and passenger both shouted simultaneously, ‘What the was that?!’ I’m getting goosebumps on my arms right now just remembering the event. I was sitting being the driver with my back against the window, and I didn’t see anything but we heard a ‘whooshing’ noise as if something flew right over the van. My friend who was sitting next to me looked like he had just seen a ghost. We wound up pulling over on the side of the road because everyone was freaking out, thinking we hit something. Nothing was found. Both the passenger and driver said they saw a tall black figure lunge at the van from the shoulder of the left lane; my friend who was sitting next to me said the same thing. The next day we inspected the van in daylight and noticed there were streak marks across the roof of the van.”

8. “When I was about 11, I was walking home and an old guy who was pushing a stroller out of the blue put his hand over my eyes for about a second as he was passing by. I have no idea why I still remember this.”

9. “When I was 7, I suddenly awoke in the middle of the night to a young child kneeling near my bed praying. At first I thought it was my younger brother, so I asked him what he was doing. After I asked, he slowly looked at me and stood up and started running, so I hopped out of bed and followed him down my stairs and out my front door. We had a long driveway, and I followed him all the way to the end and then he simply vanished. I went back to my room and nothing like that has happened since.”

10. “When I was about 14, I was staying up way too late on the computer. It was about 2 in the morning, and everyone else was asleep. I got thirsty, and wandered down the hallway to get a drink. I didn’t bother to turn on any lights since there was a nightlight in the hallway, and there was enough light to get by. I’m walking back to the bedroom when I get this weird feeling like someone is watching me, and turn around. There is this big white mist just floating right behind me. I immediately turned around and went back into the safe bright room. The thing is, there were no windows facing that hallway, and I hadn’t passed the nightlight yet, so it definitely wasn’t a trick of the light. All the doors leading to the hallway were also closed. A few years later when I was moved to the small room closest to that spot, I got the heebie jeebies and couldn’t sleep without a lamp on. It wasn’t until some time later after the sighting that I learned that in the ’80s, a guy was renting out the house. He was arrested for the kidnap, rape, and disappearance of a bunch of kids in the area, and for the suspected murder of his wife. They never found her, and she supposedly ran away, according to him. Cadaver dogs went over the farm, but they never found anything. The cops must not have done a good job though because when they moved in, my mom found a pair of boy’s underwear in the toilet tank. The missing wife was never found, and he died in prison about a decade ago. I think she’s still there, though.”

11. “I went to bed one night after watching a bunch of spooky paranormal videos and was thoroughly on edge. I was ridiculously paranoid about ghosts even though I had never had anything ghost in the house at all, nor has anything bad happened in it that I know of. Then at around 3 a.m., still not asleep because of fear, the band on my boxer briefs snapped as if someone pulled on them then let go.”

12. “This happened when I was just about 4-years-old. We lived in a really small apartment that had two rooms. When you enter our room, you could just see the kitchen and there’s a doorway on the left which is our bedroom. I was playing in the bedroom and got my slipper stuck under the bed. I can’t seem to get it since there’s only a 2-inch gap under the bed. I don’t know what got into me, but I started chanting something like ‘Slipper, get out now,’ over and over again. Then I got this feeling of dread and I got scared, so I ran away. After a few minutes, I sneaked to the bedroom and found my slipper a foot away from the bed. I ran inside to get it and got out as fast as I can. I don’t know how it could have happened. As a little girl with an overactive imagination, I just assumed a rat passed by, heard me and just pushed my slipper out of there.”

13. “I was home alone and in the bath, but I had closed the door so that my dogs wouldn’t run in and try to jump into the bath too. I was in there for a good 45-50 minutes and when I climbed out and opened the door, there had been a table moved right in front of the door, I never heard a thing while it was happening, never even heard my dogs bark and they bark for anything, and they were playing outside which is so strange for them.”

14. “When my boyfriend was about four years old, he would talk to a man he saw in the mirror. Naturally, his parents were curious about his behavior, and asked him questions about the man. He told his parents details about the man including his appearance, hobbies, and how he died. It turns out that one of the former owners of the house was a man who had committed suicide in the house, and he matched the descriptions of the man my boyfriend saw in the mirror. When his parents found out, they moved out of the house a month later.”

15. “I was visiting my dad last summer and trying to fall asleep when suddenly I felt a hand grab my ankle. I kicked furiously at whatever was grabbing me, jumped out of bed and screamed. There was nothing there. My dad came running into the room and found me sitting on the floor facing the bed. He asked me what was wrong and didn’t believe me when I said nothing, that I thought something grabbed me, and even checked the closet. I immediately felt embarrassed but it felt so real. I’ve never had something like that happen before or since.”

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studyblrrsworld · 5 years

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Why are so many people getting a meat allergy?

Becoming allergic to meat turns your life upside down. Known as alpha-gal allergy, the condition dictates what you can eat, wear, how you relax, and even which medicines are safe. Is research finally starting to catch up?

It is early morning in early summer, and I am tracing my way through the woods of central North Carolina, steering cautiously around S-curves and braking hard when what looks like a small rise turns into a narrow bridge. I am on my way to meet Tami McGraw, who lives with her husband and the youngest of their kids in a sprawling development of old trees and wide lawns just south of Chapel Hill. Before I reach her, McGraw emails. She wants to feed me when I get there:

“Would you like to try emu?” she asks. “Or perhaps some duck?”

These are not normal breakfast offerings. But for years, nothing about McGraw’s life has been normal. She cannot eat beef or pork, or drink milk or eat cheese or snack on a gelatine-containing dessert without feeling her throat close and her blood pressure drop. Wearing a wool sweater raises hives on her skin; inhaling the fumes of bacon sizzling on a stove will knock her to the ground. Everywhere she goes, she carries an array of tablets that can beat back an allergy attack, and an auto-injecting EpiPen that can jolt her system out of anaphylactic shock.

McGraw is allergic to the meat of mammals and everything else that comes from them: dairy products, wool and fibre, gelatine from their hooves, char from their bones. This syndrome affects some thousands of people in the USA and an uncertain but likely larger number worldwide, and after a decade of research, scientists have begun to understand what causes it. It is created by the bite of a tick, picked up on a hike or brushed against in a garden, or hitchhiking on the fur of a pet that was roaming outside.

The illness, which generally goes by the name ‘alpha-gal allergy’ after the component of meat that triggers it, is a trial that McGraw and her family are still learning to cope with. In much the same way, medicine is grappling with it too. Allergies occur when our immune systems perceive something that ought to be familiar as foreign. For scientists, alpha-gal is forcing a remapping of basic tenets of immunology: how allergies occur, how they are triggered, whom they put in danger and when.

For those affected, alpha-gal is transforming the landscapes they live in, turning the reliable comforts of home – the plants in their gardens, the food on their plates — into an uncertain terrain of risk.

In 1987, Dr Sheryl van Nunen was confronted with a puzzle. She was the head of the allergy department at a regional hospital in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, and had a reputation among her colleagues for sorting out mysterious episodes of anaphylaxis. This time, a man had been sent to see her who kept waking up, in the middle of the night, in the grip of some profound reaction.

Van Nunen knew at once that this was out of the ordinary, since most allergic reactions happen quickly after exposure instead of hours later. She also knew that only a few allergens affect people after they have gone to bed. (Latex, for instance — someone sensitive to it who has sex using a latex condom might fall asleep and wake up in the midst of an allergy attack.) She checked the man for the obvious irritants and, when those tests came up negative, took a thorough look at his medical history and did a skin test for everything he had eaten and touched in the hours before bedtime. The only potential allergen that returned a positive result was meat.

This was weird (and dismaying, in barbecue-loving Australia). But it was the only such case Van Nunen had ever seen. She coached the patient on how to avoid the meals that seemed to be triggering his reactions, put it down mentally to the unpredictability of the human immune system, and moved on.

Then a few more such patients came her way. There were six additional ones across the 1990s; by 2003, she had seen at least 70, all with the same problem, all apparently affected by meat they had eaten a few hours before. Groping for an explanation, she lengthened the list of questions she asked, quizzing the patients about whether they or their families had ever reacted to anything else: detergents, fabrics, plants in their gardens, insects on the plants.

“And invariably, these people would say to me: ‘I haven’t been bitten by a bee or a wasp, but I’ve had lots of tick bites,” Van Nunen recalls.

In her memory, Tami McGraw’s symptoms began after 2010. That was the year she and her husband Tom, a retired surgeon, spied a housing bargain in North Carolina, a development next to a nature reserve whose builder had priced the big houses to sell. The leafy spread of streams and woodland pockets was everything she wanted in a home. She didn’t realise that it offered everything that deer and birds and rodents, the main hosts of ticks, want as well.

She remembers one tick that attached to her scalp, raising such a welt the spot was red for months afterwards, and a swarm of baby ticks that climbed her legs and had to be scrubbed off in a hot bath laced with bleach. Unpredictably, at odd intervals, she began to get dizzy and sick.

“I’d have unexplained allergic reactions, and I’d break out in hives and my blood pressure would go crazy,” she told me. The necklines of all her T-shirts were stretched, because she tugged at them to relieve the feeling she couldn’t take a deep breath. She trekked to an array of doctors who diagnosed her with asthma or early menopause or a tumour on her pituitary gland. They prescribed antibiotics and inhalers and steroids. They sent her for MRI scans, pulmonary function tests, echocardiograms of her heart. Nothing yielded a result.

Looking back, she realises she missed clues as to the source of her problem. She always seemed to need to use an asthma inhaler on Wednesdays — the day she spent hours in her car, delivering steaming-hot dinners for Meals on Wheels. She would feel short of breath, and need to visit an urgent-care clinic, on Saturdays — which always started, in her household, with a big breakfast of eggs and sausages.

Then a close friend had a scary episode, going for a run, arriving home and passing out on the hot concrete of her driveway. Once she was recovered, McGraw quizzed her. Her friend said: “They thought I got stung by a bee while I was running. But now they think maybe I have a red-meat allergy.”

McGraw remembers her first reaction was: That’s crazy. Her second was: Maybe I have that too.

She Googled, and then she asked her doctor to order a little-known blood test that would show if her immune system was reacting to a component of mammal meat. The test result was so strongly positive, her doctor called her at home to tell her to step away from the stove.

That should have been the end of her problems. Instead it launched her on an odyssey of discovering just how much mammal material is present in everyday life. One time, she took capsules of liquid painkiller and woke up in the middle of the night, itching and covered in hives provoked by the drug’s gelatine covering.

When she bought an unfamiliar lip balm, the lanolin in it made her mouth peel and blister. She planned to spend an afternoon gardening, spreading fertiliser and planting flowers, but passed out on the grass and had to be revived with an EpiPen. She had reacted to manure and bone meal that were enrichments in bagged compost she had bought.

She struggled with the attacks’ unpredictability, and even more with the impact on her family. “I think I’m getting better, and then I realise I’m not,” she says. “I’m more knowledgeable about what I can and can’t do.”

The discovery of new diseases often follows a pattern. Scattered patients realise they are experiencing strange symptoms. They find each other, face to face in a neighbourhood or across the world on the internet. They bring their experience to medicine, and medicine is sceptical. And then, after some period of pain and recalcitrance, medicine admits that, in fact, the patients were right.

That is the story of the discovery of CFS/ME and Lyme disease, among others. But it is not the story of alpha-gal allergy. An odd set of coincidences brought the bizarre illness to the attention of researchers almost as soon as it occurred.

The story begins with a cancer drug called cetuximab, which came onto the market in 2004. Cetuximab is a protein grown in cells taken from mice. For any new drug, there are likely to be a few people that react badly to it, and that was true for cetuximab. In its earliest trials, one or two of every 100 cancer patients who got it infused into their veins had a hypersensitivity reaction: their blood pressure dropped and they had difficulty breathing.

That 1–2 per cent stayed consistent as cetuximab was given to larger and larger groups. And then there was an aberration. In clinics in North Carolina and Tennessee, 25 of 88 recipients were hypersensitive to the drug, with some so sick they needed emergency shots of epinephrine and hospitalisation. At about the same time, a patient who was receiving a first dose of cetuximab in a cancer clinic in Bentonville, Arkansas, collapsed and died.

The manufacturers, ImClone and Bristol-Myers Squibb, checked every obvious thing about the trial: the drug’s ingredients, the cleanliness of the manufacturing plants, even the practices at the medical centres where cetuximab had been administered. Nothing stood out. The most that researchers could guess at the time was that the unlucky recipients might have some kind of mouse allergy.

Then the first coincidence occurred: a nurse whose husband worked at the Bentonville clinic mentioned the death to Dr Tina Hatley, an immunologist in private practice in Bentonville. Hatley had recently finished postgraduate training at the University of Virginia’s allergy centre, and she mentioned the death to her former supervisor, Dr Thomas Platts-Mills.

The bad responses to the drug looked like allergic reactions, and they were common enough — and far enough from the manufacturer’s expectations — to be an intriguing research opportunity.

Platts-Mills pulled together a team, looping in Hatley and several current research fellows as well. Fairly quickly, they discovered the source of the problem. People were reacting to the drug because they had a pre-existing sensitivity, indicated by a high level of antibodies (called immunoglobulin E, or IgE for short) to a sugar that is present in the muscles of most mammals, though not in humans or other primates. The name of the sugar was galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, known for short as alpha-gal.

Alpha-gal is familiar to many scientists because it is responsible for an enduring disappointment: its ability to trigger intense immune reactions is the reason that organs taken from animals have never successfully been transplanted into people. The puzzle was why the drug recipients were reacting to it. To have an allergic reaction, someone needs to have been primed with a prior exposure to a substance — but the trial recipients who reacted badly were all on their first dose of cetuximab.

Team members scrutinised the patients and their families for anything that could explain the problem. The reactions appeared regional — patients in Arkansas and North Carolina and Tennessee experienced the hypersensitivity, but ones in Boston and northern California did not. They investigated parasites, moulds and diseases that occur only in pockets of the USA.

Then Dr Christine Chung, a Nashville researcher recruited to the team, stumbled on an intriguing clue. Almost one in five of the patients enrolled at a cancer clinic at her hospital had high levels of IgE to alpha-gal. But when she checked those patients’ near neighbours, treating them as a control group — that is, people who lived their lives in the same way, but did not have cancer and had no reason to have received the drug — almost one in five had antibodies to alpha-gal as well.

Almost a decade later, that correlation still makes Platts-Mills chuckle. The alpha-gal reaction “had nothing to do with cancer,” he says. “It had everything to do with rural Tennessee.”

The question then became: what in rural Tennessee could trigger a reaction like this? The answer arose from a second coincidence. Dr Jacob Hosen, a researcher in Platts-Mills’s lab, stumbled across a map drawn by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing the prevalence of an infection called Rocky Mountain spotted fever. It exactly overlapped the hot spots where the cetuximab reactions had occurred.

Rocky Mountain spotted fever is transmitted by the bite of a tick: Amblyomma americanum, one of the most common ticks in south-eastern USA. It’s known as the lone star tick for a blotch of white on the back of the female’s body.

The researchers wondered — if the mystery reactions shared a footprint with a disease, and ticks caused the disease, could ticks be linked to the reactions too?

It was an intriguing hypothesis, and was reinforced by a new set of patients who came trickling into Platts-Mills’s clinic at about the same time. They were all adults, and that was odd to start with, because allergies tend to show up in childhood. They had never had an allergic reaction before, but now they were experiencing allergy symptoms: swelling, hives and in the worst cases anaphylactic shock. They too had high levels of IgE antibodies to alpha-gal.

None of them, though, were cancer patients. They told the physicians that they had no proof of what was causing their reactions — but more than a few of them sensed it had something to do with eating meat.

Dr Scott Commins, another postgraduate fellow in Platts-Mills’s group, took it upon himself to phone every new patient to ask whether they’d ever suffered a tick bite. “I think 94.6 per cent of them answered affirmatively,” he says. “And the other few per cent would say, ‘You know, I’m outdoors all the time. I can’t remember an actual tick that was attached, but I know I’d get bites.’”

Meat from mammals inevitably contains alpha-gal — so in already sensitised individuals, eating meat might constitute a second exposure, in the same way infusing cetuximab had been.

If tick bites had sensitised them, then the alpha-gal reaction might be a food allergy as well as a drug reaction. But the connection was speculative, and cementing cause and effect would take one final, extraordinary coincidence.

As it happens, Platts-Mills likes to hike. One weekend he took off across the central Virginia hills, tramping through grassy underbrush. He came home five hours later, peeled off his boots and socks, and discovered his legs and feet were speckled with tiny dots. They looked like ground pepper, but they were dug into his skin — he had to use a dull knife to scrape them off — and they itched something fierce. He saved a few, and sent them to an entomologist. They were the larval form of lone star ticks.

This, he realised, was an opportunity. As soon as the work week started, he had his lab team draw his blood and check his IgE levels. They were low to start with, and then week by week began to climb. Platts-Mills is English — his father was a Member of Parliament — and in the midst of having his IgE tracked, he went to an event at the Royal Society of Medicine in London. “And at that point,” he says cheerfully, “I ate two lamb chops and drank two glasses of wine.”

In the middle of the night, he woke up covered in hives.

The lone star tick doesn’t receive much attention in the USA. It’s the black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis, that has the dubious honour of being the most well-known, as it’s the carrier of Lyme disease, which causes an estimated 300,000 cases of illness in the USA each year.

The lone star tick doesn’t transmit Lyme disease, but is the vector for other serious illnesses, including Q fever, ehrlichiosis, Heartland virus, Bourbon virus and tularaemia, an infection so serious that the US government classifies the bacteria that cause it as a potential agent of bioterrorism.

While Lyme clusters in the north-east and the northern Midwest, the diseases carried by Amblyomma stretch from the coast of Maine to the tip of Florida, the Atlantic to the middle of Texas, and the southern shores of the Great Lakes all the way to the Mexican border.

And that range appears to be expanding. “The northern edge of where these ticks are abundant is moving,” says Dr Rick Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, north of New York City. “It is now well-established further north, into Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and well up into New England.

“Climate change is likely playing a role in the northward expansion,” Ostfeld adds, but acknowledges that we don’t know what else could also be contributing.

It’s a universal complaint among tick scientists that we don’t know as much about ticks as we should. Tick-transmitted illnesses are more common in the USA than mosquito-borne ones — according to the CDC’s most recent accounting, in 2017 tickborne diseases were 2.6 times more common than when the agency began counting in 2004 — yet it’s mosquitoes that receive the most public health attention and funding, from national surveillance programmes to local mosquito-control campaigns. (In fact, the CDC was founded in 1942 because of mosquito-borne disease; its original title was the Office of Malaria Control in War Areas.)

What is known about where ticks live, what they feed on, and how they are affected by changes in land use and climate has mostly been assembled out of the findings of scientists fighting for scarce research funding.

It’s impossible to talk to physicians encountering alpha-gal cases without hearing that something has changed to make the tick that transmits it more common — even though they don’t know what that something might be.

The lone star tick is a sturdy, stealthy predator. It isn’t picky about conditions — it tolerates the damp of Atlantic beaches, and its western expansion only stopped when it ran up against the Texas desert — and it’s content to feed from dozens of animals, from mice all the way up the tree of life.

It loves birds, which might have helped it move north so rapidly, and it has a special lust for the white-tailed deer that have colonised American suburbs. And, unlike most ticks, it bites humans in all three stages of its lifecycle: as an adult, as a nymph and as the poppy seed-sized larvae that attacked Platt-Mills, which linger on grass stalks in clusters and spring off hundreds at a time.

Ticks detect scent with organs embedded in their first pair of legs, and what they’re sniffing for is carbon dioxide, the exhaled breath of an animal full of warm oxygenated blood. When lone star ticks catch wind of it, they take off. “The Lyme disease tick is a slow tick,” says Dr William Nicholson, a microbiologist at the CDC. “Amblyomma will run to you.”

There has been so little research into alpha-gal allergy that scientists can’t agree on exactly what stage of the bite starts victims’ sensitisation. It is possible that a fragment of a previous blood meal, from a mouse, bird or deer, lingers in a tick’s guts and works its way up through its mouth and into its human victim. It’s also possible that some still-unidentified compound in tick saliva is chemically close enough to alpha-gal to produce the same effect.

One aspect of its epidemiology is becoming clear, though. The allergy isn’t only caused by the lone star tick.

In Australia, Van Nunen (who is now a clinical associate professor at the University of Sydney School of Medicine) couldn’t understand how her patients’ tick bites solved the mystery of their meat allergy. But she could see something else. The beaches that fringe the coast north and south of Sydney are rife with ticks. If bites from them were putting people at risk of a profound allergy, she felt compelled to get the word out.

In 2007, Van Nunen wrote up a description of 25 meat-allergic patients whose reactions she had confirmed with a skin-prick test. All but two had had severe skin reactions to a tick bite; more than half had suffered severe anaphylaxis. That abstract formed the basis of a talk she gave later that year to an Australian medical association, which was then indexed — but not published in full — in an Australian medical journal. It took until 2009 for the Virginia group to catch up to it, after they had already published their first alert.

That was unfortunate, because the crucial detail in Van Nunen’s research wasn’t just that her cases were earlier than the first round of American ones. It was that they were caused by bites from a different tick: Ixodes holocyclus, called the paralysis tick. Alpha-gal allergy was not just an odd occurrence in one part of the USA. It had occurred in the opposite hemisphere, making it literally a global problem.

And so it has proved. Alpha-gal reactions linked to tick bites have now been found in the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Norway, Panama, Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa. These cases trace back to at least six additional tick species. (An online map on which patients list themselves includes over a dozen more countries.)

Wherever ticks bite people — everywhere other than the Arctic and Antarctic — alpha-gal allergy has been recorded. In Belgium, patients reacted badly to a drug produced in rabbit cells. In the Italian Alps, men who went hunting in the forests were more at risk than women who stayed in their village. In Germany, the most reactive food was a traditional delicacy, pork kidneys. In Sweden, it was moose.

Van Nunen herself has now seen more than 1,200 patients. “The next busiest clinic, about 350,” she says. Those cases have all occurred in two decades, less than the span of a single human generation. As in America, the surge leaves Van Nunen mystified as to what the cause might be. She reasons that the rise cannot be due to something in her patients; neither genetic nor epigenetic change could occur so quickly.

“It has to be environmental,” she says.

It’s a sunny early morning at the University of North Carolina Medical Center in Chapel Hill. Commins, who moved here in 2016 to become an associate professor, has 11 patients to see before the end of the day. Seven of them have alpha-gal allergy.

Laura Stirling, 51, is fretting over a list of questions. She does not live nearby; she flew down from Maryland, drawn by Commins’s reputation. In 2016, she found a fat lone star tick attached to her, and afterwards had fierce indigestion whenever she ate or smelled pork — a challenge, because her husband likes to tinker with a smoker on weekends. In 2017, she was bitten again, and her symptoms worsened to midnight hives and lightheadedness that sent her to her doctor’s office. She immediately cut all meat and dairy from her diet. A year later, she wants to know if she can add anything back.

“Can I eat dairy?” she asks. “Can I cook dairy? Can I eat it if it doesn’t have animal rennet in it?” She pauses. “I’ve been symptom-free, because I don’t take risks.”

Commins walks her through a protocol he’s developed, a method for adding back mammal products one dose at a time. He has a hypothesis that alpha-gal reactions are linked to the fat content of food; that might explain why they take so many hours to occur, because the body processes fat via a slower metabolic pathway than protein or carbs.

He recommends that patients start with a spoonful of grated dry cheese, because its fat content is low, and graduate by slow steps up to full-fat yogurt and milk and then to ice cream. If those foods don’t provoke reactions, he suggests tiny doses of lean meat, starting with deli ham.

Stirling lights up at that. “I dream of charcuterie,” she sighs.

Because Commins was part of Platt-Mills’s earliest research, he has been seeing alpha-gal patients for more than a decade now. He estimates he has treated more than 900 men and women; five new patients arrive every week. He has coached a significant number of them back to eating some mammal products and managing their exposures to the things they can’t handle, so their worst experience is hunting for an emergency Benadryl, not being rushed to the ER.

Not every patient can do this. Julie LeSueur, who is 45 and lives in Richmond, Virginia, has been monitored by Platts-Mills for four years. (He is one of several doctors she has seen for the condition, after years of severe stomach issues escalated to repeated attacks of anaphylaxis that put her in hospital. One physician, frustrated she wasn’t getting better, told her: “This is all in your head.”)

What started as an allergy to meat expanded into reactions to anything with an animal connection, including gelatine in medications and animal products in cosmetics, and then to sensitising her immune system to an array of other irritants, from nuts to mould. She buys vegan soap and shampoo, has prescriptions formulated by a compounding pharmacy, and mostly works from home to avoid unintended exposures. Reluctantly, she cut back a hobby that meant the world to her: fostering animals that have been rescued from abuse.

“I’m at home all the time now,” she tells me by phone. “I’m lucky to get off the couch.”

Commins and Platts-Mills named alpha-gal allergy a decade ago, and Van Nunen saw her first patient 20 years before that. A lab test for the allergy, the one that Tami McGraw received, has been on the market since 2010. (Platts-Mills and Tina Hatley, now Merritt, share the patent.) That makes it hard to understand why patients still struggle to be diagnosed and understand the limits of what they can eat or allow themselves to be exposed to. But alpha-gal allergy defies some of the bedrock tenets of immunology.

Food allergies are overwhelmingly caused by proteins, tend to surface in childhood and usually trigger symptoms quickly after a food is consumed. Alpha-gal is a sugar; alpha-gal patients tolerate meat for years before their reactions begin; and alpha-gal reactions take hours to occur. Plus, the range of reactions is far beyond what’s normal: not only skin reactions in mild cases and anaphylaxis in the most serious, but piercing stomach pain, abdominal cramps and diarrhoea as well.

But alpha-gal reactions are definitely an allergy, given patients’ results on the same skin and IgE tests that immunologists use to determine allergies to other foods. That leads both Van Nunen and Commins to wonder whether the syndrome will help to reshape allergy science, broadening the understanding of what constitutes an allergy response and leading to new concepts of how allergies are triggered.

Merritt, who estimates she has seen more than 500 patients with alpha-gal allergy, has it herself; she has had bad reactions to meat all her life, since being bitten by seed ticks at Girl Scout camp, and was re-sensitised by a lone star tick bite last year. She is sensitive enough to react not only to meat, but to other products derived from mammal tissues — and as she has discovered, they are threaded throughout modern life.

The unrecognised dangers aren’t only sweaters and soaps and face creams. Medical products with an animal origin include the clotting drug heparin, derived from pork intestines and cow lung; pancreatic enzymes and thyroid supplements; medicines that include magnesium stearate as an inert filler; vaccines grown in certain cell lines; and other vaccines, and intravenous fluids, that contain gelatine.

“We have enormous difficulty advising people about this,” Van Nunen says. “Sometimes you have to sit down for seven hours, write seven emails and have four telephone conversations to be able to say to a 23-year-old woman who’s about to travel: ‘Yes, you may have this brand of Japanese encephalitis vaccine because they do not use bovine material. The vaccine is made in [cells from] the African green monkey and I have looked up that monkey and it does not contain alpha-gal.’”

Some replacement heart values are grown in pigs; they may cause alpha-gal sensitisation that could trigger an allergy attack later. And cardiac patients who have alpha-gal allergy seem to use up replacement heart valves more quickly than normal, putting them at risk of heart failure until they can get a replacement.

There’s also a growing sense that alpha-gal may be an occupational hazard. Last year, researchers in Spain treated three farm workers who developed hives and swelling and had difficulty breathing after being splashed with amniotic fluid while they were helping calves to be born. All three of them — a 36-year-old woman, a 56-year-old woman and a 53-year-old man — already knew they had alpha-gal sensitivity, but had never imagined that skin contact would be risky.

Commins has treated hunters who developed reactions after being splashed with blood after field dressing deer; those cases raise the possibility that meat-processing workers could be at risk. In the two main Facebook groups where patients gather, it’s common to hear school cafeteria workers fret about reactions from breathing the fumes of meat cooking.

Last summer, researchers working with Commins reported that people with alpha-gal allergy may have greater allergic reactions to the stings of bees and wasps, potentially endangering landscapers and other outdoor workers.

It’s hard to know how many people may be sensitised to alpha-gal without knowing it. A project at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that studies unexplained occurrences of anaphylaxis found last year that 9 per cent of the cases weren’t unexplained after all: they were alpha-gal patients whose sensitivity had never been diagnosed.

Platts-Mills points out that the prevalence of high levels of alpha-gal IgE in his earliest studies was up to 20 per cent in some communities, “but that was absolutely not the prevalence of allergic reactions to meat,” he says. “So there are clearly plenty of people out there who’ve got the antibody but don’t have this syndrome.”

What this all means is that there are almost certainly people for whom a meat-containing meal or medical intervention could trigger an alpha-gal reaction of unknown severity.

There may be further peril awaiting them. In June, Platts-Mills and other researchers revealed that more than a quarter of patients who came to the University of Virginia’s medical centre for cardiac catheterisation, to clear out life-threatening blood-vessel blockages, were sensitised to alpha-gal without knowing it.

The patients with the undetected allergy had more arterial plaque than the ones without, and, most worrisome to the researchers, their plaques were of a type that is more likely to break away from the arterial wall and cause heart attacks and strokes. Though the research is early — done in one group of 118 patients, in a known hotspot for alpha-gal — Platts-Mills worries it presages a risk for heart disease that is larger than anyone expects.

When a new disease surfaces in the USA, it’s usually the CDC that investigates, pouring epidemiologists and data scientists into the field to track down connections and bring back samples for lab analysis. But investigation of alpha-gal is caught in a bureaucratic quirk of federal science. The CDC is responsible for infections spread by insects and arthropods — but alpha-gal syndrome is not an infection. That makes it the responsibility of NIH — which has abundant lab scientists, but no shoe-leather disease detectives.

NIH does seem to be taking an interest. In June 2018, it hosted an invitation-only one-day IgE-mediated Meat Allergy Workshop; in the past, such meetings have indicated the giant agency is considering launching a research programme. But just reading the workshop’s programme provides a hint of how new alpha-gal research is; participants called the problem by multiple different names, displaying that there isn’t even yet any agreed nomenclature for it. Similarly, the US-run universal search engine for journal articles, PubMed, indexes papers on alpha-gal under “allergy to galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose”, “mammalian meat allergy”, “delayed red meat allergy”, “galactose-α-1,3-galactose syndrome” and more.

Platts-Mills was one of the workshop’s invited speakers and gave the opening statement. Commins was there as well, along with researchers from New York, Germany, South Africa and Sweden.

Dr Marshall Plaut, who convened the meeting and is now chief of the Food Allergy, Atopic Dermatitis, and Allergic Mechanisms Section at NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, describes it as the earliest step in possibly committing to a research programme. (Platts-Mills and Commins have already received some NIH funding.) “It signals that NIH has some interest in understanding more about the disease,” he says. “There are a lot of things that need to be understood.”

In August, Commins gave a talk on alpha-gal allergy at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases, a conference held every two or so years and sponsored by the CDC that often surfaces the earliest signals of illnesses that are destined to become big problems.

The CDC’s director of foodborne illness was in the audience; so was its director of vector-borne diseases, the department that deals with ticks. Afterwards, they both zoomed up to ask him questions. “I kind of had the impression this was just a weird, small thing,” Dr Lyle Petersen, the vector-borne director, told him. “But this seems like kind of a big deal.”

With NIH and the CDC paying attention, research into alpha-gal might be reaching a threshold, a moment at which isolated investigations might coalesce into answers. For the patients, who feel isolated too, that can’t come soon enough.

#health tips #health & fitness #allergy

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deadmantalking117 · 7 years

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DOCTOR, DOCTOR - GIMME THE NEWS!

This one kinda weirds me out. A lot. When I began writing these essays, one idea kinda lead to the next. One memory lead to another. So, my brilliant and beautiful wife said. "You should use the notepad feature on your phone to list all the different things that you've had, to keep them in order " That turned out to be a really great idea. But it quickly became a huge undertaking of a couple days. One memory leads to another. When I added all the mundane things that everyone goes through or the one-offs, one time ER trips... it got insanely long. As you're about to see... Mundane = everyday regular stuff Special= diseases, surgeries, tests, procedures, etc. One-offs = accidents and injuries 0 THROUGH 10 YEARS OLD Mundane- -Birth -Measles -Mumps -Rubella -Chicken pox (Had all my vaccinations) -Colds or flus -Various cuts scrapes bruises burns -Cavities, fillings, regular dental work Special- -Asthma attacks (3 years old) Spend a couple days in hospital for tests -Rhuematic fever (before 2 years old) High fever, almost died -Migraine headaches (since 4 years old) -Salmonella food poisoning (9 years old ) The whole town! From my sister's defective birthday cake. My first taste of Crohns One-offs- -Broken left little finger (3 years old) Feeding a goldfish, pulled over a dresser Left hand splint / half cast -Rusty nail through left hand (9 years old) Couple stitches / tetanus shot -Fish hook to the face (10 years old) Cut out hook / couple stitches inch below left eye 10 THROUGH 20 YEARS OLD Mundane- -Colds or flus -Various cuts scrapes bruises burns -Regular dental work Special- -Migraines (since 4) -Spend week in hospital (13 years old) Undergo a battery of tests to figure out why a kid gets migraines. During one test, I stop breathing and need emergency resuscitation. Allergic reaction to xray contrast. -Hangovers (18 and up) It's why I don't drink! -Grease burns from working in fast food. It happens. One-offs- -Went to ER twice as a teen for concussions from playing football with friends. -Caught an iceball from my cousin, in my left eyeball. Scratched cornea, ER visit to clean it. Eye patch for a week. -Ran over a wasps nest while mowing. Stung 12 times. -2nd degree sunburn over 75 percent of my body. Fell asleep on the beach. One giant blister, got lidocaine spray from ER. -Had all 4 wisdom teeth plus 2 others extracted at same time. -Catastrophic bike accident. Ripped most of the skin from hands, arms, knees, damage to chest, legs, and face. So much blood! 20 THROUGH 30 YEARS OLD Mundane - -Colds or flus -Various cuts scrapes bruises burns -Regular dental work Special- -My first real medical tests Blood tests - xrays - MRIs - CAT scans Upper and Lower GI series. -abscess near rectum Cut and drain in Dr. Office -Fistula. The long tear from my intestines through the muscle and tissues until it formed the abcess. -Surgery to repair the fistula (my very first major surgery!) -1st Bowel resection. Removed part of small intestine. Removed the appendix (Surgery #2) -Left inguinal hernia post resection surgery -Surgery to repair hernia (Surgery #3) -Cyst on left testicle (also post surgery, no idea why) cut and drain in Drs office. -Migraines (always) -High blood pressure is permanent (start pills) One-offs - -Root canals 30 THROUGH 40 YEARS OLD Mundane- -Colds or flus -Various cuts scrapes bruises burns -Regular dental work -Glasses eye exams -Hypertension -Migraines Special - -Dozens of ER visits and extended hospital stays for Crohns disease. Hundreds of medical tests. Hundreds of needles. Dozens of xrays et al. -Bowel resection #2. Remove more small intestine ( Surgery #4) -Duodenal ulcer -Peptic ulcer -Five blood transfusions to replace severe blood loss from 2 different ulcers. Required 2 years of regular AIDS test as precaution. -Severely bloody stools from ulcers -Surgically insert central line IV access for easier access. Three long tubes dangling from my right side ribcage. Needs to be flushed and cleaned daily. Its inconvenient. Gets swapped out for.. -Infuse-a-port. A titanium drum inserted under the left collar bone, under the skin. For easy IV access. My veins are mostly destroyed by now. I have it removed a year or so after. -Regular colonoscopies from now on ! -Arthritis issues (getting older) -Skin irritation around nose and mouth during flare ups. Requires prescription creams One-offs - -Pneumonia (too much time in hospitals) -Another 2nd degree sunburn. On legs only. From surf fishing in ocean. Because meds I was taking made me very susceptible to sun. I wore long sleeves, but standing in water up to my ribs so I thought I'd be ok in shorts. I wasn't. Couldn't walk for 3 days. Blisters everywhere. -Narcotic withdrawls. After I walked away from everything at 40. 40 THROUGH 50 YEARS OLD Mundane - -Colds or flus -Various cuts scrapes bruises burns -Regular dental work -Glasses eye exams -Migraines -Hypertension -Aging issues (pulled muscles, aches, pains) Special - -Many ER visits and extended hospital stays for Crohns disease. Tests, needles, etc. -Third bowel resection. Emergency surgery after ER trip. (Surgery #5). -Kidney stones. They're just starting -Fake heart attack. Feels real enough! First series of heart tests. Stress test, etc. Already showing signs of damage and hardening. -Pneumonias (more common as you age) -Regular colonoscopies at least every 3 years -Face flare ups during Crohns flares -Arthritis confirmed in hips,hands, knees One-offs - -Dentures. Vomiting all the time and chronic malnutrition are really bad for teeth. -Perforated left ear drum from water skiing wipeout. Forced water into the ear canal at high velocity. Ow. Deaf in left ear for several days. -Passed out from new blood pressure meds. Busted head on toilet seat. 4 stitches above left eye. Tell everyone I was mugged! It's a better story. -Got foreign object in right eye. Scratched cornea. ER to clean out. Prescription eye drops. Eye patch for a week. -Remicade treatments that crippled me. Couldn't walk, couldn't barely move, fell down, couldn't get up, crawled to phone, had daughter take me ER. Big dose of prednisone and I'm mobile again. Discover it's my new Crohns treatment causing the problem. Stop treatments and after 6 months, I'm back to mostly normal. 50 THROUGH 58 YEARS OLD Mundane - -Colds or flus -Various cuts scrapes bruises burns -Regular dental work -Glasses eye exams -Hypertension -Migraines -Old age sucks ( pulled a back muscle badly taking a shower ) Special - -ER Visits and hospital stays for Crohns disease. Tests, needles, blah,blah,blah. -Colonoscopies like clockwork -Occasionally kidney stones -Mononucleosis (don't ask) -Pneumonias (started getting vaccinated) -Valley fever. A ball of fungus in my upper right lung, common in southwest. Potentially dangerous. Requires lung biopsy. -Sleep apnea. Diagnosis from lung doctor after valley fever diagnosis. -New heart issues. During routine physical the doctor wants a routine EKG. He's panicked. I have to go to a Cardiologist tomorrow for stress test or die. He's already set it up. -Stress test. There's new problems! We need to put you in the hospital right now. We think you're going to die right now. Need angiogram. -Angiogram. They shave you down "there". Insert a long thin camera from your groin to your heart. Inject dyes. Watch the action. Everything looks ok here! Keep checking back every 2 or 3 years from now on. One-offs - I quit going outside. Wrapped my body in bubble wrap. Too tired to get hurt. I'm currently waiting for a meteor to crash through my roof. WOW! JUST... WOW! 58 years of living seems to have involved a ton of medical assistance. But here's the thing. If I were to strip away all the special things.. a lot of which aren't really that special. And all the one-offs, things which happen to lots of people, accidents will happen! Take all that away, and there's still years of regular stuff that everyone deals with. And as we age, there are more and more everyday issues that we all must cope with. The healthiest people in America, still have accidents. The healthiest people in America still get older. Half the things on my list are very common ailments. Healthcare effects every single human being. My list is ridiculously long. But take a few minutes, make your own list. You dont have to write it all down. Just spend a little time seeing how much you can recall. I'll bet it's way longer than you realize. Mine certainly was! Be well my friends

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