I think my favorite thing about doing ginger red hair instead of cherry red hair is: lying to people about it

Back home from that second damned full general anesthesia gastroscopy session, and I survived. Just about. Feeling pretty rough about now, and very little of it is from the procedure itself. Still pretty full of Migraine Potion, of course, to make everything more pleasant.

But! This happened. Sure, the whole extra fuss of getting anesthesiology involved makes everything so much safer and better. Particularly with the T1 diabetes!

The main Dunning-Kruger part that I was referring to with the anesthesiologist I got hold of today was that she seemed to be operating under the strange idea that diabetes means that you need a constant supply of glucose, or you will go hypoglycemic. (As in, the exact fucking opposite of how anything works.) And that the long-acting insulin that I was not due to take would also somehow help keep my blood sugar from going dangerously low right then and there? Idek. Maybe she thinks that is a depot shot of extended release sugar? 🥴 (Again, it must be Opposite Day in the Anesthesiologyverse.)

There may have been some language/communication issues there. But yeah that really did not seem to be the main problem. This also was not an issue at all last time. It was definitely that anesthesiologist giving crazy instructions.

Hospitals are not a healthy place for T1 diabetics to end up anyway. There is so much piss-poor knowledge paired with God complexes going around. But, that's one of the strangest understandings that I have ever even heard of.

At least that was only half of my usual Lantus dose they insisted on giving me. So, when saying that it was not due for hours yet--and I that I did not want or need it--did not work? I went ahead and took the shit rather than go completely ballistic at them, because at least that was unlikely to do any actual harm. Guess I'll take the other half when the next dose is actually due, and hope the dosing disruption doesn't fuck me up too bad over the next few days.

(Though at least that was not my entire daily Lantus dose they were screwing with. I regularly take it twice a day, to help keep things steadier. So, a few units hours early should hopefully not make much difference.)

But yeah, I'm glad that nurse in the pre-op and after recovery post-op section did have more of a clue, saw what was shooting my blood sugar up immediately, and stopped the IV before it just kept climbing. Several more units of insulin later, and I am just feeling like slightly reheated shit after that little roller coaster ride. It could have been much worse, but that shit kind of scared me anyway.

Also glad it really isn't a long procedure, other than all the waiting and extra rigmarole compared to just going straight into an endoscopy room like I was doing before they decided to do this instead. They thankfully didn't have that long to pump my insulin-deficient ass full of liquid sugar.

Though, I did end up stuck for longer in the actual recovery room, getting glucosed up with no brakes, because the coughing from the intubation tearing up my throat triggered enough of an asthma attack this time when I did NOT have access to the inhaler I preemptively brought along after last time, that they ended up giving me this mask nebulizer treatment in there.

So much safer and better! 😒

But, I am finally home and now making some coffee.

And I am so glad that ordeal is over with for another month now. With some talk of shifting it to every 6 weeks after that. I really hope I don't get that same anesthesiologist again.

At any rate, I intend to be loud if I have to about NO FREAKING GLUCOSE. They were purposely not using it before.

To bargain for immortality pt.3

As it turns out, poison did not kill her. Not by a long shot. Not if the numerous tests with different kinds of poisons were to be believed.

Nicole was currently bent over the sink placed in the corner of Miranda's lab, her assistant hovering behind her with a timer in hand. What was it this time? Hemlock? Belladonna?

She stopped caring when a new wave of blood carrying the replaced tissue from internal damage came rising in her esophagus. With a disgusting gag, it came splashing onto the white porcelain, now stained and coated in crimson multiple times over. She coughed, trying not to let any of the burning mixture remain stagnant in her throat, and focused on the feeling of her body healing itself. It felt, for lack of a better word, like static coursing through her nerves and organs. After that too was gone, and the only thing that remained was the nauseating coppery taste in her mouth, she raised a shaky hand, too tired to speak up.

"Seven minutes, thirty four seconds," Emma announced.

Mother Miranda noted it down, fingers typing quickly over the keyboard.

It was a miracle that Nicole was still able to stand, although leaning a good part of her body weight on the sink thankfully secured to the wall did help. She took a few deep breaths, doing her best to not sound too croaky when she spoke.

"Can I see the results once we're done?"

She could keep track of everything herself of course, but it got difficult when her body was fighting toxins meant to shut it down. And she'd be lying if she said that she wasn't dying of curiosity.

"It's none of your concern," Miranda replied coldly.

That got a scowl to appear on thin blood stained lips, partially hidden by her hunched position. "I stood here quietly while you shoved pill after pill made from every poisonous plant you could get your hands on down my throat. At least grant me the grace of knowing my own body's limitations."

Her reply was little more than a tongue click. She couldn't help a scoff when Miranda simply ignored her request and told her assistant to continue with the next test on their list. Emma picked up one of the numerous pill bottles lined on her employer's desk and came over to Nicole, who unceremoniously grabbed one pill and swallowed it before looking at the label. Cyanide.

Oh for fuck's sake.

Her body's reaction was immediate, heart starting to beat painfully quick while her head started to spin. It was nauseating, the ache seeming to flood her chest and going up her spine in a searing migraine. Not to mention the deep breaths that didn't seem deep enough, as air itself seemed choking, the oxygen not quite reaching where it should. Mild panic started to settle in when black splotches began to cloud her vision and the tingling sensation seemed to battle with the pain for dominance. Before she knew it, her shaky legs gave out under her and the white ceiling of the lab blurred out of focus.

---

She woke up with a start, the bluish lights a painful glare to her eyes. The sound of ticking stopped and Nicole realized it was Emma's timer. She looked down at herself, haphazardly placed on a bed and then at Miranda, typing down a result the ringing in her ears hadn't allowed her to hear. With a few shakes of her head to try and chase the fog in her brain, Nicole finally croaked out: "What the hell happened?"

"The cyanide was damaging cells and keeping them from taking in any oxygen at a slightly faster rate than those cells were getting replaced. Which caused you to lose consciousness."

Miranda's tone was just as cold and clinical as ever, but a slight smirk tugged at her lips when she continued, the excited scientists buried under the mask of a goddess showing a crumb of itself.

"Although I'm quite certain we solved the mystery behind the accelerated heart rate. All previous tests show that it takes no longer than a few minutes to recover, while this took over twenty five."

Nicole was still fighting some mild dizziness, but she put all the focus on Miranda's words.

"We'll have to rerun the tests under anesthesia, but for now it's safe to assume the healing slows down while unconscious."

She acknowledged the theory with an oh. She wasn't really capable of much conversation at the moment, but she let the thought be metaphorically chewed in her brain. That made sense. If healing was slower after passing out, then her body had a damn good reason to keep her awake, hence the unnaturally high heart rate.

A slow shuddring sigh was let out when Miranda asked her assistant to prepare the anesthetic, laying back down. At least she wouldn't be awake for this one.

It took around double the normal dose to finally get her unconscious. She kept her eyes glued to the needle embedded in her arm until her vision was starting to fail her, the surrounding room becoming nothing more than dark blurs and vague beeping sounds.

People do not dream under anesthesia.

Nicole knew that of course. But as the lab blurred into odd shapes and more or less familiar places, there wasn't really a better word to describe it. Perhaps a result, she would later muse, of her overactive brain, fighting for consciousness at any given moment as it now had an instinctual need to stay awake.

That need manifested itself in the vague image of one of the castle's hallways. It was in an old wing, not frequently used by many other than the cleaning staff. She was walking along the wall, using it to compensate for her wobbly legs, and looked around for something. What exactly, was beyond her comprehension at the moment, but that didn't stop her from stumbling inside each room on her path, looking around the bright and beautifully decorated space, only to exit and continue down the hallway.

Something. Something ugh.

Nicole tried not to lean on the wall too much when she got to the golden frame of a painting, not wanting to risk damaging it. Slowly walking around, she threw a glance at the canvas when she was fully in front of it. She frowned.

It was the familiar portrait of all three sisters, dressed in period appropriate clothing and hair up into small curls. Their eyes, painted in such a way that they seemed to follow any onlookers around, greeted her with soft expressions. Some details seemed different though. They were small, and it took a bit of effort to notice how the brushstrokes seemed to have shifted ever so slightly in places. A familiar rose tattoo was present, albeit quite faint, on each of their foreheads, and their features seemed a little less soft and more akin to how Alcina would paint them. Nicole stopped to look at Cassandra's hand for a little longer, as if something was supposed to have changed there too. But before she had time to dwell on that, the realization that the painting should not be there dawned on her. Why would Alcina move it? And to a near abandoned wing of the castle no less. If she remembered correctly, that portrait had been at the main entrance for decades.

Nevermind that, she could just ask Alcina herself if they crossed paths. She kept walking down the hallway, trying to ignore the nagging feeling at the back of her mind that something was off. Off, like the slightly misplaced furniture, or the lack of certain decorations, or antique objects that she knew for a fact were on display on a completely different wing. No, Nicole kept looking through every room she came across, in search of something her foggy mind couldn't quite grasp the memory of.

She finally reached one of the more populated areas, and although still not fully able to grasp her surroundings and walk around without any support, a shiver still ran down her spine. The off-putting feeling turned to dread with the realization that she was completely alone. No maid or other staff member has crossed paths with her in what felt like an eternity. No sound could be heard aside from her own breathing and a faint beeping coming from outside. At that moment, Nicole longed for the sound of giggling or the shuffling of a broom, hell even the sound of lycans howling outside. Anything.

By that point, shuffling against the wall felt more of a psychological need than a physical one. There was a fear that accompanied anyone when you found yourself in a place that seemed so unlike its normal self, and Nicole tried to make herself smaller than she already was in the eventuality that something would pounce out from the silence and tear her to shreds.

She found herself traversing another corridor littered with numerous doors to guest bedrooms or simply storage rooms. Each was opened one by one, whatever laid behind it inspected, and then shut again. Rinse and repeat. Repeat until Nicole found herself in front of an oddly familiar door. It had nothing special, the crest and color exactly the same as the ones she had left behind, but its position seemed to tug at her memories.

The door was pushed open, a slight creak accompanying the movement, and Nicole found herself in a well lit office. It was obviously a rarely used one, the shelves only holding a small number of oddly organized files and boxes, while the chair was tucked under a large desk. The plush carpet underfoot caught her attention, beautiful black, white and golden motifs waved around each other in an intricate pattern. She walked across it, up to the desk and crouched down to run her fingers on the old worn wood of small drawers. The iron handles used to open them seemed to be gone from all but the topmost one, which she opened slowly.

Oh.

The drawer was empty save for two familiar objects, a pair of matching rings with minuscule branches in flower engraved on them. She picked them both up but almost dropped them back when a set of hurried footsteps sliced through the dead silence just outside the room.

There was no time to scramble for a hiding spot, especially not with how her head started to spin the moment she stood up again. All she could do was put the hand that wasn't holding the rings on the desk to support herself and watch as the door swung open.

A sigh of relief flew past cracked lips at the sight of confused golden eyes framed by dark locks of hair. Cassandra was standing at the entrance, head cocked slightly to the side.

"Did you lose it again?"

There was a hint of annoyance in her tone, but it was mostly drowned out by an amused chuckle as she walked up to her.

"No, I-..." Did I? "I'm sorry."

Cassandra simply took one of the bands and wordlessly slid it on Nicole's ring finger, gesture that was imitated in turn.

"Why are they here?" Nicole's question was barely a whisper, either due to the dizziness she felt or the cemetery-like silence that almost demanded not to be disturbed. "I know I instructed the staff to bring mine to my room if they find it."

"Oh it wasn't any of the staff members," Cassandra replied matter of factly, even waving a hand to dismiss the apparently absurd idea.

"Then who?"

"I don't know."

Nicole frowned. She pinched the bridge of her nose trying to chase away the eerie feeling that seemed to have made its roots deep inside her mind. Cassandra's voice seemed off, and that beeping from earlier seemed to close in ever so slightly.

"Why here?" She repeated.

Her wife only shrugged and looked around the room, taking her time with the reply.

"Isn't this where we first saw each other?"

Right. That's why the office was so familiar. The memory of Lady Dimitrescu, so beyond intimidating at the time, sitting in the chair and interviewing her for a maid's position came flooding her foggy brain. Then the giggles and the rather dramatic entry and the small bickering.

"Are you waking up?"

If Cassandra wasn't so close to her, she would've thought a third person had spoken. Her wife's voice seemed off before, but now it didn't even sound like her own. Familiar, yes, but the regal icy tone belonged to someone else.

Nicole tried to instinctively put some space between them, only for Cassandra's expression to twist with concern, furrowed brows over soft golden, always so uncharacteristically soft when pointed at her. Cassandra opened her mouth to speak again, but the beeping came in louder, almost as if making its way from her throat with the sole purpose of attempting to bust her eardrums.

The room seemed to rapidly bleed out of focus, details replaced by black dots and blurry lines. Cassandra's shape slowly morphed, her beautiful black dress leaving way to a plain lab coat and golden eyes turning into icy green, ever calculating and scrutinizing. Incessant beeps from the cardiac monitor brought her back to consciousness more rudely than she would've liked.

Nicole shook her head slightly, trying to chase away the last effects of anesthesia. Her body seemed eager to oblige, quickly trying to wake up and be back on her feet. Not that she had any intention of actually getting up, but soon enough, she was looking around the space and all the pristine equipment held within. Emma was busy arranging vials and pill bottles inside a cabinet while Miranda was by the bed typing away, nails annoyingly loud on the keyboard. She shook her head once again, and looked to the opposite wall, where a clock was ticking. It was almost 11 p.m. and Nicole let out a soft groan thinking about how she'd been under anesthesia for about three hours and how her family was probably waiting for her to get back.

She laid her head on the uncomfortable pillow while waiting for the goddess wannabe to be done with her observations on her current lab rat, which meant Nicole, and finally dismiss her.

It took a moment to realize that Miranda had turned towards her and pushed her laptop close to the side of the desk, screen facing Nicole. After receiving a confused look, the woman rolled her eyes as if she were a teacher explaining basic maths for the hundredth time.

"You wanted to see the results."

Nicole's confused expression did not change, though now it was more directed towards the suspicious willingness to give what she asked for. Nonetheless she scooted to the side of the bed, letting her legs dangle over the edge, and she narrowed her eyes at the file on the screen.

---

Date: 23rd April 2012

Subject: Nicole [REDACTED] Dimitrescu

Mutation experiments - 2 (Regeneration - 2)

Resistance and healing time to various poisonous plants (in the form of highly concentrated pills or injectable) and other toxins. First number refers to the healing time while conscious and the second while unconscious.

Belladonna (Atropa belladonna) - 2'13" // 6'30"

Rosary pea (Abrus precatorius) - 2'20" // 7'02"

Crowbane (Cicuta virosa) - 2'40" // 7'12"

Wolfsbane (Aconitum lycoctonum) - 3'30" // 8'11"

Hemlock (Conium maculatum) - 3'18" // 8'28"

Oleander (Nerium oleander) - 3'55" // 10'17"

Ricin (Ricinus communis) - 5'58" // 16'19"

Arsenic, 100mg - 7'34" // 21'38"

Cyanide, 50mg - / // 26'53"

- PINKY AND THE BRAIN - EXPERIMENTS -

Below the cut is a personal project on the much more morbid side. Animal lab experimentation is always something I’ve found equal parts horrible and fascinating. Once in a blue moon, I’ll do research on the subject out of curiosity and/or for storytelling purposes. Even as a kid, I found this of interest, and when watching Pinky and the Brain I was always a bit disappointed that we never saw more of what the characters actually went through in the lab during the day. Granted, there’s a reason as to why this was never shown, as a child audience had to be kept in mind, yet still I pondered about it....

Over the last few days, I’ve been churning out compositions based on internet findings -- old and new experiments that rats and mice are put through, many of them humane, some of them very much not. It was an eye-opening journey for me artistically and otherwise, discovering what I’m comfortable drawing and what I never want to sketch again, as well as learning more about this realm of the scientific world.

WARNING: SOME GRAPHIC CONTENT BELOW THE CUT. If needles, patients dealing with the effects of cancer, and general portrayals of pain bother you, I wouldn’t bother venturing onward. I not only drew out experiments that the characters might have gone through, but also describe all of my findings in detail and provide video footage to go along with it. While I didn’t go full-on vivisection or anything, some of this might still be disturbing, so I’m taking extra precaution.

All of the images below are “color-coded” and graded. The experiments start out fairly tame, then get worse... and worse... and worse. The backgrounds reflect this, going from fairly light to quite dark.

-------------

Experiment #1 - Tail Flick Test

A fairly harmless experiment. The subject is mostly restrained, leaving only their tail exposed. An intense light beam is projected onto the exposed appendage, with the animal flicking their tail when the pain/heat becomes too much. This test is utilized in basic pain research and to measure analgesic effectiveness.

I wanted Brain to wear an expression of deep apathy -- he’s done this a million times and will probably do it a million times more. At this point, he doesn’t even care anymore.

For the background, I simply copied an environment in one of the videos I found.

Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzrA1tDTfkQ

Experiment #2 - Rotarod Performance Test

Another experiment that’s generally harmless. One or multiple subjects are placed on elevated rotating rods so as to measure such things as endurance, balance, grip strength, and more.

I imagine Pinky would enjoy this test, as he’s familiar with running on a wheel and actually enjoys more strenuous activities. Brain, on the other hand, would only participate via sheer force. He’d also be more prone to fall after a shorter period of time, getting tired faster than his cage mate.

Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v56MtrmWAs0

Experiment #3 - Shot (General)

Nothing special. Just Brain about to get shot.

This is all highly exaggerated, of course. A mouse would simply be held firmly, not strapped down, for a simple injection. Also, I can’t imagine why they’d be shot in the face, although Meg told me that scientists tend to draw blood samples from a mouse’s cheek. Need to look that up. I wasn’t at all going for accuracy here, but rather how it might feel -- how scary it would be.

Experiment #4 - Sciatic Nerve Constriction

An experiment in chronic neuropathic pain, due to the central or peripheral nervous system sustaining damage. Under anesthesia, the animal’s sciatic nerve is exposed via skin incision. The connective tissue between the biceps femoris muscles and the gluteus superficialis is cut. The nerve is then loosely tied with four chrome gut ligatures so to occlude, but not arrest, blood flow. The wound is sutured, the animal is given 24 hours to recover, and then both hindpaws are tested for pain sensitivity. Sounds terrible, but it’s certainly not the worst of the experiments I researched.

I have no idea what’s going on with the coloring in this. Again, going for feel more than accuracy, but the hues are way too calm.

Information link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22433911

Experiment #5 - Writhing Test

Particularly cruel test in which acetic acid is introduced into the system, inducing severe internal pain. The typical response includes writhing, abdominal retraction, and stretching of the hind limbs. Despite the test being withdrawn in 2004 for unethical reasons, it is still employed by some.

This was my favorite one to draw. Although the lighting and shading are not the greatest, it made for an interesting experiment. I did not intend for the lines to be so bold, but it kind of turned into an almost comic-style illustration. I ended up playing around with it a bit and like the result enough to post it.

I would not watch the video below if you are squeamish. It is difficult to swallow. On another note, you may find the “Empathetic Behavior: Emotional Contagion in Mice” section in the second link of interest. For cage mates in particular, if one or both mice were injected with the same acid, and allowed to observe one another, an injected mouse would writhe more if its partner was also in pain. I can’t help but imagine Brain and Pinky in this type of situation....

Information link #1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3543562/

Information link #2: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/writhing-test

Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib63O4F856w

Experiment #6 - Transgenic K5ras Mouse / Nude Mouse (Combination)

Experiment in which cancer is induced in the system. Nude mice are bred for a number of tests, and are used for this one, as well.

My least favorite to draw, but my favorite to color. One particular experiment I found showed a tumor in every follicle on a mouse’s muzzle. Was trying to go for this look, albeit exacerbated.

Information link #1: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(98)70203-9?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982298702039%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Information link #2: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/weirdest-lab-mice/

-------

Bonus:

This is based on a test that I found absolutely hilarious. There’s a certain chemical, called W-18, that’s been on the drug market for... some years. The potency of it is supposedly insanely high, although this has never been proven. It’s basically a research chemical (created at a university in the 80s) with analgesic properties that were shown to be “painkillers or blockers of the painkilling effect of morphine in mice”. Mice, not humans. To quote a specific article:

“... when they first injected some of these chemicals into the animals at a dose similar to aspirin, the mice stood up for about a minute and fell over unconscious. They remained unconscious – for five days. But they weren’t dead. They were still breathing. And when they woke, they seemed fine, other than being really hungry and thirsty.”

They literally keeled over from the supposed potency of it. From what I recall, they don’t even know exactly what it was doing to their system, other than the fact that it knocked them out. I just find it funny that they were completely fine after awakening days later.

Although the pure smell of it wouldn’t cause such a reaction, I liked the idea of it in picture form and so depicted Brain simply taking a whiff before passing out.

Information link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2016/04/30/w-18-the-high-potency-research-chemical-making-news-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt/#2c45a5dd4757

-------------

Experiments researched, but not implemented:

- Tail dipped in ice cold water (mentioned here: cold water) - Morris water maze - Porton Down nerve agent test(s) (the worst; not even sure how I’d depict this)

The Porton Down tests sounded so indescribably cruel that I simply couldn’t bear to put Brain or Pinky through either of those, much less draw them out. It was the most horrific of the experiments I found, second only to a story about a French physiologist in the 1700s/1800s who performed, I believe, vivisection on live, six-week-old puppies. There’s a limit and that’s my limit. Even the cancer-based composition above was difficult to create. I legit felt dirty drawing it.

Researching these subjects was incredibly interesting, and I came across a few articles that touched on animal experimentation and the question of whether or not it’s ethical. Should such practices continue? It’s more complicated than a simple “yes” or no” answer. Some tests are fairly harmless, whilst others border on the inhumane, and some are downright cruel. Some people say that, without testing, there would be a lot less medicine on the shelves to assist in relieving and curing our ailments, whilst others argue that 90+% of the time the testing done is unnecessary, the results yielded by the subjects dissimilar to those that would be shown by humans and, henceforth, stating that the inaccuracies are numerous. This particular article offered up what I thought was a pretty genuine and interesting debate on the matter:

Pain in Lab Animals: How Much is Too Much?

In an interview with Dr. Jeffrey Mogil, a neuroscientist, he mentions that:

“You have complete control over everything in mice. Within limits, you can do whatever you want as long as you minimize pain and suffering of the subjects.“

Full interview: https://www.integrativepainscienceinstitute.com/latest_podcast/sex-differences-in-pain-and-pain-inhibition-with-dr-jeffrey-mogil/

While many establishments do follow the Animal Welfare Act, other laboratories still implement unethical practices. Also, the rules for what constitutes as acceptable in regards to tests that can only be performed without painkillers or anesthesia administered is... nebulous.

Thankfully, there is a number of lab testing equipment on the market specifically designed to be more humane and less stress-inducing to its subjects. These restrainers, for example, allow the animal to “walk in” without having to be physically forced backwards into a container:

Restrainers

Here is another example of testing that is relatively pain-free:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4401362/

It’s simple and inexpensive while still allowing scientists to perform tests.

Below is a video showing how a type of rotarod works, one that doesn’t place the rods too high and provides a cushion underneath in case the subjects fall:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T38fDS2i13k

This tail flick analgesia meter comes installed with a cut off timer to avoid damage to the animal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgaStZt143o

So there are options. How often are such options utilized in the field? I have no idea, although there are laws that should be followed and, from the sound of it, generally are adhered to. Not everyone in this business is cruel. Though you do have your occasional psychopath who performs very morally questionable operations behind closed doors, I believe that this is a great exception to the rule, and that there are a lot of laboratory workers who genuinely want to inflict as little pain as possible upon the animal. Just an opinion. I don’t have tons of evidence, but it seems like most people are sane. Lol.

Most of the experiments I inflicted upon Brain because, I think, Pinky is so pure that I have a hard time imagining him sustaining any kind of extreme pain that would genuinely hurt him. Also, he borders on being freakin’ masochistic, finding pleasure in a lot of painful situations, whereas Brain does not. Brain has been through a lot, mentally and physically. It seemed more... “appropriate” to put him in these situations, as terrible as that sounds.

All of that having been said, I never want to do this kind of exercise again. While a lot of it was interesting, and some of it even fun, parts of it were legitimately painful. The cancer one.... I felt horrible....

My Experience Working at TT Electronics and Why I was a Bad Candidate

I didn’t sign the exit interview so I can talk about it.

           The last two years that I spent in Corpus Christi, TX working for TT Electronics would seem to most like something out of a sci-fi horror film.  I can reference two documentaries that detail similar experiences.  Had certain events not fallen into place it is likely this story would have never been told.  Most people who have worked for TT Electronics would deny the events that took place, but it makes no difference to me if anyone believes me or validates what happened.  I’m writing this because there isn’t really anyone that it makes since to talk to about this.  The only conclusions that can be drawn from any of this is that there truly are undocumented atrocities within our government agencies and that there are a number of reasons why I was never going to be a good candidate to be lured into one of these programs.  So now I’ll tell you all of the things I’m not supposed to say.

           The events that occurred as a result of me working at TT Electronics were not random.  Some background information is needed leading up to that to fully understand. Something my father will never talk about, and even deny, is that in college his nickname was “Spook” in reference to Einstein’s Spooky Theory.  I never put the reference together until recent years because if we would ask him about it he would tell us the nickname came from being short and he would sneak up on people, or something to that affect.  If he actually had come to any conclusions to expand on this theory I always thought he would have done so years ago.  He would never talk to me about anything like that so any work I did later in life relating to that was completely independent.  Part of the reason I resent the notion of people having some sort of profound purpose is because my being born was likely the result of some crazy idea for a science experiment.  I also understand the irony in that statement now, but I’m not my father (I’ll elaborate on this more, we have completely different intentions).  I was walking around unassisted at 7-months old and was pulled out of class fairly regularly during elementary school for extensive testing. I was never really allowed to have friends over other than the neighbors I lived around.  A lot of the early details I was never given an explanation about. Now as an adult my parents have made it abundantly clear that I am of no value to them or their business.

           When I started working at TT Electronics it seemed like a normal place to work and most people had worked there for a long time so I assumed it would be a good company to work for.  The only thing that seemed odd to me when I was first hired was that many of the employees seemed to argue more often than previous companies I had worked at and they hired me just before starting to lay people off. I have always been an exceptional employee so after being an electro-mechanical technician for almost two years I was promoted into a new position because of some of my qualifications from my military experience and my assertiveness in taking initiative to improve the maintenance department.  I always made it a point to keep my personal life and work life separate so I never spent time with anyone outside of work until after my ex-boyfriend and I unexpectedly broke up, and even then my involvement with anyone from work outside of work was minimal.

           I first started to notice something was going array at my place of employment was when I got my boyfriend a job with the company. I later learned that it was part of the process to break us up.  Employees would spread rumors, my boyfriend was moved to work a different shift, and at one point he was unknowingly given drugs that caused his behavior to change.  He would become very easily agitated and argue with me until it became unbearable and I was worried about him.  Still not fully understanding what was going on I knew he would be better off with his family so after nearly seven years together I didn’t think I had another choice but to break up with him.  We had always had a very honest relationship and told each other everything so I would have known if he had decided to knowingly use a drug at that time.  I was also familiar with how some substances affected him since he sometimes struggled with anxiety.  Medication for anxiety tended to make him very angry and that is how he started to behave.  After he left things for me increasingly worsened.

           I was promoted into a position intended to fail, so when I didn’t completely fail no one at the company knew what to do.  Around the time I was promoted into an office job many employees left, most of them expressing that they didn’t agree with the direction the company was going.  There was never any sort of signup sheet or consent form, nothing was ever fully explained, only vague comments were made that I was going through some sort of training.  At one point when I was having a difficult time with everything one of the engineers showed me a file cabinet that was filled with files about me.  After going through Marine Corps training I knew that in some training it was not always in my best interest to excel.  I was under the impression at that time that they didn’t expect me to make it through the training so I helped empty the file cabinet into the trash.  One employee told me that they didn’t like the people who worked there to be too clean, this way if anyone tried to come forward and explain what happened they could be discredited.  I was unknowingly given drugs in my food and drinks and then observed to see how I would respond or how my behavior would change.  I wasn’t only drugged at work, but the food in my apartment and my dog were also regularly drugged.  When I tried to say something was wrong people tried to make me think I was losing my mind.  They underestimated me.  I confirmed I was being given methadone and barbiturates by taking an at home drug test.  At the time I took a prescription antidepressant so it wouldn’t have made any sense that I would willingly take either of those. I woke up in the middle of the night that day to hear someone I thought I could trust laughing with my roommate at the time about how I didn’t like being drugged.  I finally had to give my dog away because she wouldn’t eat her food and was constantly getting sick.  I lost so much weight at one point I barely weighed 100lbs., but everything still continued.  This was also part of the process, to separate me from anything I cared about. I was referred to as a “thing” at work, trying to minimize me to something less than human.  Separating me from anything I cared about also extended to being separated from my daughter.  I love being a mom more than anything, but this was also taken away from me. I always struggled with not understanding why this happened.  After serving my country my rights and freedom were taken away from me.  My daughter was told I was a junkie, she was told to call another woman mom, and I was even given hormones without consent to prevent me from being able to be a mother because it was something I wanted. The worst part was that my parents were fully aware, and even supportive, of what was going on.  My father finds it funny to taunt me, letting me know that he knew what was going on.

I was always somewhat of a perfectionist, but this was taken to an even more extreme level during the time I worked at TT Electronics.  At work there were times when working on something on my computer, or giving a presentation I would start to hear a strange sound throughout the building and would start to feel odd.  Whatever it was made it more difficult to focus and anytime I did something wrong or differently than normal I would hear the strange noise and start to feel like my head was being scrambled.  I had to do everything perfectly or there was a punishment. I was like a literal concentration camp or sorts.  I was expected to perform the same under all conditions.

In addition to being drugged at my apartment there were also times when something was distributed through the air ducts.  There were times when I wouldn’t sleep for days or the opposite would happen, I’d be completely exhausted.  As part of the supposed training I was led to believe was being conducted my apartment was broken into in the middle of the night while I was sleeping.  I am usually a light sleeper so my immediate response was to grab the gun I kept in my bedside table and clear my apartment. This didn’t happen again since I of course had real bullets loaded.  What did happen though was that I would be sedated, I assume through the ventilation air ducts, and people would come into my apartment in the middle of the night and inject something into my neck.  I started to really notice the injections after getting a suntan and spots appeared on my neck.  I wasn’t supposed to remember what happened during these night visits, but I did remember. When given truth serum, rohypnol, and small doses of anesthesia I was still able to remember what happened, and that was not the expected result.  So again, most of this was never meant to be told.  It would have been better for the company for me to end up going crazy, ending up in jail, or even dead, which they would have been completely okay with happening.

I was also exposed to different illnesses, I assume to see what I was immune to.  What should be infuriating to the public is that I was usually exposed to some sort of illness before one of the few times I let on vacation, meaning I would be exposed to an illness of some sort and then sent out into public airports or other public areas putting others at risk of also getting sick.  Luckily, I didn’t actually get sick very often.  Apparently the company liked to employee veterans, especially those who had been deployed because we would have received more vaccinations than most.  Apparently I became ever more interesting to observe because I wouldn’t always respond in the way expected.

I had always kept a secret about my daughter and myself.  I became fairly in tune with varying degrees of telepathy from a young age.  I knew it was something I could never tell anyone so I always kept it secret.  My daughter and I kept secret that we were always able to communicate with each other.  Things became rather interesting when someone at work started to figure this out.  No one was ever supposed to know.  I would be given truth serum and asked questions about my military training and about my daughter and I communicating.  Not only could I remember things on truth serum, I also gave false information.  I started testing the people who were supposed to be testing me.  At work they didn’t know what to do with me anymore.  I wasn’t doing drugs so there were concerns about me talking to anyone about what was going on.  The company needed me to stay “dirty” so my credibility would be questioned.  At this point I’m sure anyone reading this probably has some questions for me.  Why did I stay for as long as I did for starters? There isn’t a single answer to this question.  I knew if I left without proof of what was going on no one would believe me, people would think I was crazy.  Not that I’ve ever been one to care much what other people think but after everything I’d already lost it was important to me to know I could prove the people where I worked were wrong.  I was also concerned about some of the other employees who worked there and wanted to help them if at all possible, even if that meant having to deal with a lot of my own turmoil.  Really, I didn’t have anything else to lose.  I also couldn’t leave.  Everything I did was watched and my finances in many ways controlled.  I couldn’t go to my parent’s house because I knew members of my family were aware of what was going on.  When I did get back to my parents house this was confirmed by finding more marks on my neck from injections.  My parents are just as guilty as the people I worked for at TT Electronics.  Some of the events that I knew my parents knew about I would have never allowed to happen to my daughter.  We always want to think the most of those we are related to, and I would have never spoken against my parents without good reason.  

I’ll elaborate more on my parent’s involvement with by explaining what happened next.  You’ll never find accurate information about the STAR program, but I’ll tell you what I know about it.  My understanding is that it was a program geared at exploring communication, specifically geared toward telepathy.  There was never any conclusive evidence and the program ended up as more of a failed investment by the US government.  TT Electronics is actually based in the UK.  This was also never something that a manufacturing plant that makes electrical components would be involved in.  A microchip manufacturing plant should also have no involvement in the above-mentioned events or what I am about to speak of.  Since I wasn’t doing drugs TT Electronics needed me to be involved in something that would be damning to my reputation and credibility to protect themselves.  At this time things were starting to go downhill for the business with decreased orders.  There was more emphasis placed on projects that were out of the scope of the business objectives and backend trafficking and prostitution to makeup for lost profit. You can read on glassdoor.com about the local management having God-like complexes and not treating employees well. The men in the management staff would actually lead women to believe that if they had sex with them they would somehow have special powers.  I honestly found some humor in this absurd notion.  While it’s known to improve relationships pushing that some people could give you special abilities through intercourse seemed farfetched.  Before this the company tried to sell people on the idea that these injections were the secret to better communication. Without going into unnecessary details about this the company started experimenting with this idea which resulted in selling sex and unconsensual pictures, films, and in-person observations in conference rooms at work.  The other idea was that my eggs could be sold without my permission and that somehow the same result could be achieved.  My parents supported both of these ideas.  My fathers reasoning for why my opinion did not need to be taken into consideration was that since I couldn’t get it right the first time, referring to me being divorced and my daughter not living with me (even though the circumstances of both of those events were not my fault), that I shouldn’t be allowed the opportunity to try again.  There are so many things wrong with anyone having that much of a say in another able-bodied persons life.  Besides, they were benefiting so they didn’t care.  After everything my daughter and I have been through they thought this magical process could be minimized to sex being the answer, so why did no one figure this out before?  To try to get me to comply with this prostitution venture I was promised many things, people even going as far as to try to lead me to believe that someone would help me with getting my daughter to live with me.  

I love myself too much to sell myself so that didn’t happen, yet another problem for TT Electronics and anyone else who knew what was going on.  My daughter is awesome so we’re both obviously great.  The issue with the company telling everyone my secret was that after working at TT Electronics I had to be very careful who I worked for next, not wanting the wrong people to try to benefit from intellectual property that didn’t belong to them.  As it currently stands any mothers who agreed to the original process created by TT should expect to separate from their children at age 2, that’s what they signed up for knowingly or not.  Although I don’t see how someone could argue they didn’t know.  They need another process to corroborate the events that are claimed to be key to mine and Faith’s relationship and communication. The only way to try to prove that is by showing it makes a difference in another mother-daughter pair.  I want nothing to do with that process.  I also can’t elaborate any further on the details of my personal research.  So much could have been avoided if someone had just asked me in the beginning what was going on.

  I never had a drug problem.  I had a problem with people entering where I resided without permission.  I had a problem with those who claimed to be close to me lying to me.  I had a problem with not really having control over my own life (being lead to believe I did, but we know that’s not true).  I had a problem with anything I cared about being taken away until I just stopped crying.  I had a problem with needing to escape.  Might I remind you all that there was no problem until the fear of what I loved the most being taken, and then it happened.  I never wanted anything to do with any of it and never had a choice either.  I quit!

  References

The Fifth Estate. (2017, December 15). Brainwashed: The Secret CIA Experiments in Canada - The Fifth Estate [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i82trFGtY24

NATGEO. (2008, March 6). CIA Mind Control | CIA Secret Experiments [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUW-frxo2X4

After moving back to Texas to work for another company something similar happened again.  I filed for a Protective Order June 2, 2021 against a Bell employee after complaints to HR and on June 4, 2021 a letter was drafted to terminate in retaliation.  Please review the following emails of Wrongful Termination:

Julie Hall smiled on the witness stand as she recalled a memory of her old client Joseph Wood. He had spent most of the last two decades living in solitary confinement, with his recreation confined to a cage, when the Arizona Department of Corrections began to loosen some restrictions over people on death row. A basketball court was built outside his unit on the sprawling desert prison complex in Florence, about an hour south of Phoenix. At 55, Wood was relatively healthy — “he loved going out and playing,” Hall said. A prison sergeant even played a round of basketball with Wood, which meant a lot. “He felt like he was being treated like he was human for the first time in a long time.”

Hall’s smile disappeared when she described the day Wood died. It was July 23, 2014. His execution was scheduled for 10 a.m. Hall arrived at the prison that morning at 6:45, then waited almost an hour to see him. When the Arizona Supreme Court granted a temporary stay of execution, Hall told him the good news. Wood was prepared to die, she told the court; ever since he committed the murders that sent him to death row, he had felt he did not deserve to live. Still, “he wanted someone to listen to us when we said that this was an experimental method of execution.”

Wood was the first to face a new form of lethal injection in Arizona that used a combination of the opioid hydromorphone and the sedative midazolam. The latter had raised controversy over its use in executions. Florida first tried it in 2013 to kill a man named William Happ “in what seemed like a labored process,” according to one media witness. Happ “remained conscious longer and made more body movements after losing consciousness” than people executed under the old formula, according to another report. The Florida Department of Correction, which refused to say how it chose the drug, dismissed the concerns — and soon other states were trying out midazolam. In January 2014, Ohio used it to execute Dennis McGuire. Witnesses described how he struggled and gasped, clenching his fists and striving to breath. A few months later, in April 2014, Oklahoma used midazolam to kill Clayton Lockett in one of the most notorious botched executions in recent memory.

But Arizona stuck to the plan. By noon that day, Wood’s stay of execution had been lifted. Prison staff provided Hall with a pencil and paper and led her to the witness chamber. No phones were allowed. Once inside, she was told, she would be forbidden from leaving the room. Hall watched as a pair of TV monitors were turned on above the closed curtains. “That’s where we could view the insertion of the IV lines,” she explained. Hall was surprised at the amount of blood she saw — some of it dripped onto the floor. With the IVs eventually placed, the monitors went dark. The curtains opened. Wood lay strapped to the gurney, thick straps over his arms and a white sheet covering his legs.

At 1:52 p.m., a voice came over the loudspeaker. The lethal injection was about to start.

After five minutes, with the first dose of midazolam presumably administered, a man entered to conduct a consciousness check on Wood. The voice came back to announce he was sedated. But three minutes later, Hall said, “I saw a quiver in his cheek, which surprised me a little.” She didn’t know whether it was normal or not. It was two minutes after that when she saw Wood gasp for air. Then he did it again. And again.

“He just kept gasping,” Hall said. She began counting the gasps on her notepad. After 20 minutes and 134 gasps, she stopped counting. “I just didn’t know what the point was anymore.” Hall struggled to describe what it looked like. It reminded her of a fish that was dying after being pulled from the water — “that opening of the mouth; trying to get air and just not getting it.”

At 2:50 p.m., Dale Baich, supervising attorney of the Arizona Federal Public Defender’s Capital Habeas Unit, who was seated behind Hall, passed her a note. “Go now,” it said, instructing her to call their colleagues in Phoenix. Hall hurried out of the witness room and asked a guard if she could use his phone. He refused, then escorted her outside of the death house, through a maze of sally ports and checkpoints, and finally, out to the administration building. It took nine minutes. Only then was Hall able to make a call, to tell someone that “something was going very, very wrong and it looked like Mr. Wood was suffering.”

Hall was still on the phone when Wood was finally declared dead at 3:53 p.m. The next day, media witness Michael Kiefer published his own account of Wood’s struggle to breathe. Over the two-hour execution, he reported, Wood gasped more than 640 times.

Hall told her story in fits and starts, answering questions in a courtroom in Nashville, Tennessee. It was July 9, 2018, day one of Abu Ali Abdur’Rahman v. Tony Parker, a trial over Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol. Parker is the head of the Tennessee Department of Correction, or TDOC. The named plaintiff is one of 33 men facing execution under a new formula that includes midazolam. Three have been scheduled to die by the end of the year. One of them, Billy Ray Irick, is set for execution on August 9.

Hall was one of more than 20 witnesses called by the plaintiffs, including some dozen defense attorneys who had witnessed their clients’ executions. They dramatized what lawyers argued in their trial brief: that Tennessee’s new protocol violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. First issued in January, it called for the injection of three drugs: midazolam, followed by a paralytic called vecuronium bromide, and culminating with potassium chloride to stop the heart. With midazolam chosen to provide anesthesia, the attorneys argued it was not only possible but very likely their clients would suffer. What’s more, they said, the protocol prevents defense attorneys from having access to a phone during the execution, in violation of their clients’ constitutional rights.

The witnesses described executions in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, and Oklahoma. Many had never spoken publicly. Their accounts ranged from subtle but unusual movement on the gurney to gasping, lurching, and clenching of fists. They were bolstered by leading medical experts who explained the scientific reasons why midazolam was inadequate to provide anesthesia.

One pathologist presented evidence that had never been shown in court. He had reviewed 27 autopsy reports out of the 32 total executions carried out using midazolam. In most of the cases, he found signs of pulmonary edema — fluid in the lungs that indicated the men had been in respiratory distress. The inescapable conclusion was that states have almost certainly been torturing people to death in their execution chambers — and that Tennessee might be ready to do the same.

After weeks of testimony, a ruling came quickly, on July 26. It sided with the state. In her order upholding Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle wrote that the plaintiffs had failed to prove their case, while acknowledging that the use of midazolam might leave them vulnerable to pain during their execution. The U.S. Supreme Court was “aware of the risk of midazolam,” she wrote, and upheld it anyway in Glossip v. Gross. Though “dreadful and grim, it is the law that while surgeries should be pain-free, there is no constitutional requirement for that with executions.”

For anyone who has followed the legal evolution of lethal injection, Lyle’s ruling was not a surprise. The decision ultimately turned not on midazolam, but on a different provision of Glossip. Under the ruling, the plaintiffs had to prove not only that Tennessee’s protocol was cruel and unusual, but that there was a viable alternative. In her dissent in Glossip, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor decried this “surreal requirement,” one that puts attorneys in the perverse position of identifying methods that should be used to kill their clients. Though Lyle conceded that this law “seems odd,” the requirement was clear. “That proof has not been provided in this case.”

Decisions in chancery court have limited sway. Under Tennessee’s Declaratory Judgment Act, Lyle’s ruling amounts to a “declaration” — an opinion that can only be weaponized by bringing it to a different forum. Most lethal injection challenges are brought before federal courts that have the power to stop executions. Lyle did not. In bringing the lawsuit in chancery court, Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry hoped to win a ruling that could influence the state Supreme Court or governor to intervene.

Yet the order belies the significance of the trial itself. As Henry said in her closing argument on July 24, it was the first time a three-drug protocol using midazolam had been the subject of a “real trial.” Until now, most hearings on midazolam were on whether to grant a preliminary injunction to stop a looming execution. Such hearings are rushed by their nature — witnesses often appear by Skype. This was not the case in Nashville. Though the trial moved quickly, the testimony was extensive and nuanced, providing a much fuller picture of the science behind the drugs used in lethal injection. Lyle was deliberate and measured — and cautious not to allow witnesses to testify beyond their expertise.

The questionable analysis of expert witnesses has had major consequences where lethal injection is concerned. At the preliminary injunction hearing that paved the way for Glossip, Alabama-based pharmacist Dr. Roswell Lee Evans peddled opinions divorced from scientific reality. Among his claims was that 500 milligrams of midazolam — the same dose as in the Tennessee protocol — would render someone unconscious to the point that they would not feel pain. Anesthesiologists adamantly disagreed. In an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, 16 professors of pharmacology cited the “overwhelming scientific consensus” that midazolam was incapable of inducing the “deep comalike unconsciousness” called for in lethal injection. On the eve of oral arguments in Glossip, the case was embroiled in controversy over the revelation that Evans had relied on sources like the website Drugs.com.

There is “no debate around midazolam,” anesthesiologist Dr. David Lubarsky told the court in Nashville. Among such experts, Evans has no credibility. But among prosecutors intent on carrying out executions, Evans remains a useful and willing witness, “recognized by numerous state and federal courts,” as Deputy Attorney General Scott Sutherland told the court. If anyone lacked credibility, he suggested, it was the “highly biased” defense attorneys who watched their clients’ executions, he said, quoting a 6th Circuit ruling over Ohio’s lethal injection protocol. As a more authoritative source, Sutherland offered the official department of correction records from 19 executions carried out using midazolam in Arkansas, Florida, and Ohio. Many of them were described as problematic, but these records showed everything had gone fine, he said....

Henry pushed back against the state’s argument that the true effects of large quantities of midazolam are unknown since there have been no “human experiments” to collect data. “Unfortunately, we do have human experiments,” she said. “We have 32 human experiments. Men who were executed using a protocol that involves midazolam.”

Sutherland began by invoking the gruesome crimes for which the plaintiffs had been convicted. “These facts provide context for this court as to why we are here,” he said.

With a low voice that was sometimes hard to hear, Sutherland wore a look of mild irritation — and the slightly casual air of a man who knows the law is on his side. He quoted Justice Samuel Alito’s reasoning in Glossip: “Capital punishment in this country is constitutional, and it follows, necessarily, that there must be a constitutional means of carrying it out.” The Constitution does not require a painless execution, Sutherland went on. It only prohibits the deliberate infliction of torture, such as disembowelment or being burned alive. What’s more, “in the history of its existence,” the court “has never invalidated a state’s chosen method of execution as cruel and unusual punishment.” As for midazolam, there was nothing new to discuss.

Sutherland seized on the main problem with the plaintiffs’ lawsuit. They argued in favor of a one-drug protocol using the barbiturate pentobarbital, a formula used by states like Texas. But they showed no proof that pentobarbital was available, he said. Instead, they argued that TDOC never made an effort to procure it. This was not true, Sutherland said, but regardless, “it’s not our burden to prove that it’s unavailable.” The plaintiffs had to prove that it was....

On the stand in 2003, Heath explained that if the first drug in the protocol, sodium thiopental, was not adequately administered, the pancuronium bromide would cause suffocation while creating a “chemical mask,” concealing any evidence of the excruciating burning pain that would result from the injection of the third drug, potassium chloride. Lawyers called a woman named Carol Weihrer, who described her terror during eye surgery in 1998, when she woke up while under the effect of pancuronium bromide and was paralyzed, unable to alert her doctors.

Presiding over the 2003 hearing was Ellen Hobbs Lyle, the same judge who handed down the ruling last month. On June 1, 2003, Hobbs sided with the state, concluding that lawyers for the condemned had failed to prove that Tennessee’s protocol was unconstitutional. But she was critical of the lack of research behind the protocol — and particularly pointed in criticizing Pavulon, “a drug outlawed in Tennessee for euthanasia of pets.” It served no purpose except to give “a false impression of serenity to viewers, making punishment by death more palatable,” she wrote. And if the anesthetic failed to work, she warned, the paralytic would hide the “excruciatingly painful ordeal of death by lethal injection.”...

Henry reiterated an argument she had tried to make at the end of the trial. If the state could not carry out an execution using the alternative they had put forward — a single dose of pentobarbital — the plaintiffs moved to amend their complaint to consider an “alternative to the alternative”: a two-drug cocktail that removed the vecuronium bromide altogether. This option is “clearly available and readily implemented,” which would satisfy the Glossip requirement. And it would remove one of the well-established risks: that their clients would be paralyzed, suffocating, and suffering as the lethal drugs took hold.

It seemed simple enough. Parker himself has suggested it would be possible. Indeed, Lyle had been among the first in the country to criticize the paralytic back in 2003. “If the state is sincere in its belief that midazolam will work the way that they say it will work,” said Bradley MacLean, counsel for Abu Ali Abdur’Rahman, “there is no reason why the state should oppose this.”

But it did. Sutherland called it a “desperate” move, while Lyle explained that the law prevented her from granting the motion. As for her prescient opinion 15 years ago, she wrote in her ruling, it came before Baze and Glossip. The Supreme Court had found a legitimate purpose for the paralytic: hastening death, while dignifying the process for witnesses and the condemned alike. Her previous decision was “of minimal use.”

My medical history. It's hella long bare with me.

Trigger warning.

Age 2 I had labial adhesions in 2001 had emergency surgery while I was awake I have vivid memories of this and was the start of a clinical trial most children died of this at the time because there wasn't many treatment options outside of surgery. I was put on estrogen cream and the dosing wasn't correct I almost started puberty so It was immediately stopped. The direct cause was thought to be too much Testosterone. I spent a year in follow up appointments and such all seemed ok most of my memories of this time is being in alot of pain

Age 5 I had another labial adhesion there was no abuse present and my testosterone levels were high yet again the feeling of dread I had was horrible i thought I was going to die again I was at a appointment and. Every doctor came to look at me 3 days later I had surgery with anesthesia this time lmao they used a different technique and had a appropriate dose of estrogen I remember having so much pain all the time for months I missed out on my whole summer my birthday I couldn't swim or anything.

From 6months till I was 12 years old I had chronic ear infections and hearing loss I had 40% hearing in one ear and 50% in the other I wore hearing aids for a little while age 5-6 I stopped after awhile because I like hearing without the ringing they caused. They weren't good ones but the chronic pain from that was miserable along with the things going on in my life at the time with abuse and neglect

5-8 years old I sprained my bones alot from simple falls but never broke a bone thankfully.

Ok let's dive into the horrible psychologist abuse I encountered.

Age 10 my mother went to prison i came out about my depression and anxiety and physical abuse but not sexual. I saw a psychiatrist and a therapist my psychiatrist changed my medicine every month and drastically increased it in the middle of the month I was on so many different medications this went on for 2 years I kept decling and fell into major depression and self harm my psychiatrist told me and I quote "i can't help you any more your can't be helped if you want to die so bad you need to be put away." I went to the therapist in shambles and she said she said he would be reported and that I should probably go to the hospital because she didn't feel like I was safe to go home. So I went to ye old local mental hospital and when I was in the process of being admitted the feeling being helpless and wanting to die was just the tip little did I know I would be worse that i ever thought. The searches and mental evaluations it was calming the reassurance knowing I couldn't hurt myself. Got out but shortly went back in and that summer I got so bad and has a close suicide attempt and developed psychosis this led to my admission in the state hospital this place was horrid. Asking for someone to talk to about being suicidal or hallucinating resulted in being sedated which made me sleep for a day this happened 3 days a week I eventually stopped asking we barely had groups and no individual therapy as promised because everyone was on vacation. I was verbally abused by a nurse and I literally faked a recovery to get the hell out of there. I was hospitalized my freshman year 2 weeks every month August to December and was told I'm going back to state if I go back so I didn't. So age 12-15 was basically spent in the hospital. last hospitalization was October 2017 after a suicide attempt but after discharge I received a acceptance letter to my University things are ight now.

OKAY. so my entire day post is going to be put under a cut because the entire thing is WAY TMI, but there’s way too much shit that happened that I need to process and I already gave the sanitized language version of it on twitter but I can’t fully process it without getting into details. you have been warned- WAY TMI. 

okay, so. backstory, I woke up on Tuesday with stomach pain and ended up spending most of the day on the toilet. By the time I finished (like 7 hours later- yeah it was BAD) I noticed there was something weird going on down there, but I wasn’t really paying attention. Wednesday morning I was having a lot of pain and it occurred to me that maybe because of Tuesday I had a hemorrhoid (it only gets worse from here, so if that makes you squirm you should bail out now), but like, idk because I’ve never had one before and idk what they look like, so I googled it and shit and did their home remedy stuff, sitting on a ice pack helped, I did a “sitz bath” (which is basically sitting in four inches lukewarm water for 15 minutes), aloe vera, and really nothing helped. Woke up this morning and it was still bad. I showered because the warm water did help a bit, but I was getting suspicious at this point that something else was going on here, so I asked my mom to look at it and she was like WOW OKAY WE’RE GOING TO THE DOCTOR. And here lies the problem of trying to diagnose and treat your injuries off google, because I wouldn’t have known that other than my suspicions that hey there’s this giant bulge in my ass crack and it probably shouldn’t be there. my primary care couldn’t fit me in today but they recommended we go to the walk in clinic, so we do that and the doctor takes one look at that and is like “yeah this looks like a rectal prolapse and a hemorrhoid and you need to go to the ER right away” OH JOY. so if you’re not up on your scientific vocabulary, a rectal prolapse is basically when part of your digestive tract comes outside of your body and usually requires surgery to fix. wonder-fucking-ful. Thankfully we’re close to the local hospital that’s like, the number one trauma center on LI (it’s like two miles from my house so that’s always been convenient) so we go there and the urgent care people gave us a letter to give the triage people, but we still ended up waiting in the hallway for like an hour and a half, during which I was in pure misery, but the male nurse who drew my blood was sweet though and slightly flirty but in a nice and not a creepy way so there’s that at least. he left the needle in my arm because it sounded like I’d be needing it at some point. So eventually we get called, and taken into a section called the clinical decisions unit, where I guess is where they figure out if you need surgery or not. So I get in there and someone comes to look and is like OH YEAH LEMME GO GET THE DOCTOR because everyone seemed to agree this was high key bad, so they got doctors, and more doctors, they even took pictures and sent them to the head guy of the department, but the consensus was oh yeah, this needs surgery to fix. and at this point I’m just like fine, just get it done. they did give me some pain medication around 3 or so, which ended up by 5 mg of morphine, which took pretty much all my pain away and I only felt slightly woozy lol but that perked me up significantly and I was actually like talking and stuff instead of lying there looking like death. there was a bit of a wait for the OR so we had to chill for a while, then eventually I get brought in there and the surgeon comes and like, I had been thinking all day about watching The Resident and just how ridiculously easy it is for them to just straight up kill patients in routine surgeries and they have the one chief of surgery who’s got a hand tremor and is just like slicing organs open, and then in comes this guy who’s like the #1 in the department and has gray hair and I’m just like FUCK MY LIFE I hope I survive this lol (I know the show isn’t very realistic when it comes to that subject). So we’re getting ready, their general idea is that they’re just gonna cut the damn thing off because it looked infected and shit, so they go to check and the doctor is like “oh, uh, it’s gone” and I was like......”really? are you sure????” cuz apparently it slipped back in because that’s a thing that can happen, but they were like well we should still probably go ahead with the surgery because the hemorrhoid is still there and could pop back out, so we go for it, they decided to not do general anesthesia but do sedation, whatever the difference between those two is, so I was out anyway and I woke up after and they were like “yeah so turns out it wasn’t a hemorrhoid and he didn’t have to do any cutting or stitching” and I was like “....so then what did he do?” haha and I’m still not 100% sure about that one really, but they were more than happy to send me home which I was very thankful for because I did not want to spend part of my spring break in the hospital. so they got me out of there pretty quickly with a giant bandage on my butt that I’m not sure is serving any purpose at all really, but they told me to leave it on there until I shit again so I guess that’s what I’ll do. We got home, my mom went to pick up the percocet they called into the pharmacy for me but they were closed, a little while after my dad and my brother got home, my dad was speaking at this big thing tonight that he’s trying to launch at churches across the island about understanding the opioid epidemic and how to prevent it, and he said not quite as many people showed up as he would’ve liked but it was still good so that was good to hear. As far as how all this craziness started, I’ve in the past had episodes of like scathing stomach pain that make me feel like I have to go to the bathroom, but I usually end up cowering in pain on the toilet with nothing coming, until eventually something will give and it’ll all just pour out as liquid (again, I told you this is TMI) and like, it used to happen a lot more frequently when I wasn’t eating much and my regularity was thrown way off schedule (like once a week) but I don’t do that anymore and I take a fiber supplement every day because I’m on a high dose iron supplement thanks to me being super anemic, so it’s usually not an issue, it happened the night of my sister’s sweet 16 at the end of October but I think it’s only happened maybe once in the four months between then and now? And I did bring it up at my last gastroenterologist appointment but he didn't seem to think much of it and said it was probably just another muscle spasm (because he had just said my chest pain issues were probably caused by a muscle spasm). The doctor from the hospital tonight apparently recommended I get a colonoscopy done at some point to make sure everything is alright and in place, but idk if I’m gonna do that because I have a pretty good idea of just how this happened, plus I have a lot of like, traumatic memories about that stuff from when I was little and they thought I had Crohn’s disease (when it was actually just nightly cramps for an entire year before my period showed up) and being subjected to a bunch of really invasive stuff that I was not at all comfortable with so that’s not exactly gonna be on the top of my to do list. Other than that they said not to strain when going to the bathroom and eat a lot of fibre, so I’m gonna try harder to eat actual fiber and not just the shit in caplets, and try to make that work out better. and yeah, that is about it, after all that I chatted with friends for a bit then started getting ready for bed with this absurdly large bandage on my butt 😂 We’re supposed to go out to dinner to this super schmancy place (because my parents have a gift card to it) tomorrow to celebrate my brother and I’s birthdays (his was today but because of all the crazy we’re gonna celebrate this weekend) so hopefully that will work out. And oh yeah, since I turn 26 in 11 days, if this happened 11 days from now I would’ve totally FUCKED because I would’ve had no health insurance thanks to getting kicked off my parents plan at 26!!! Lovely *sigh*. And as much as it does suck to get sick on vacation, I am at least glad I was with my family and not in Chicago where I had nobody except like, Jess (and no offense to her in the slightest, because I’m sure she would’ve been great, but with this kind of thing a mom is just better suited for it), and that sounds kinda miserable. Okay, that’s the end for real now, I took my pills a while ago and now my eyes really want to shut and I’m going to listen to them. If you made it all the way through, thank you for suffering through all that TMI to find out how I’m actually doing, though I kinda doubt many of you will actually reach this far, lol, but I cannot blame you for that. Goodnight my dear friends. I hope your Thursday was a hell of a lot better than mine.

Alphabet Intricacy (1) Bucky x Reader

Summary:The Winter Soldier may have been taken down, but the Avengers never expected HYDRA to have a secret backup weapon. Bucky strives to help this stranger become human again. After all, doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance? 

Chapter Warnings/Themes: Cussing, mentions of torture/physical harm to a child, Implied death.

Author’s Note: Had this series queued for awhile. Don’t know how far this or “Reboot” will go to be honest, but we’ll see. Each chapter is a different word that connects to the story somehow and goes through the whole alphabet. You get it. ooooh Boyy THis is gon be so bad imsosorry

Also holy shit, the first few paragraphs are a bit disturbing, sorry. 

Y/N = Your Name

Atrocity [Noun]: 

A cruel act that may involve physical injury or violence. 

Next Chapter: B - Blanched

A small, dark room appears onto the projector. There is a wooden chair set up underneath a lamp, all rotted up and sitting a small boy. He was gagged by a towel wrapped tightly over his mouth and his hands were strapped down. 

“Commander?” a feminine voice calls out of view, sounding as deadly as venom and as cold as steel. 

“Where is your daddy hiding the money, child?” Another voice responds. A bulky man appears, pulling off the gag and stepping to the side. He looked agitated about something and definitely was not one for patience. 

The child cries out, pulling at his restraints and trying desperately to escape. “I don’t know, sir. I don’t know! Please let me go. I want to see my mama! I want to-” a slapping sound resonates throughout the room. 

The child is sobbing, his whole body shaking as he shuts himself up. A red mark begins to color his right cheek. The man rubs his wrist and breaks eye contact. He may be a villain, but even he couldn’t look the innocent boy in the eye. “This is pointless. I don’t have time for this. F-32, ready your weapon.” shuffling comes from somewhere off camera and the child’s cries pick up. “No. No. I don’t want to die. Mama! I want to see my Mama! I’m a good boy, please. I don’t know- I don’t-” there’s a loud bang and the screen turns black before switching on to the chair now empty. Blood painted the floors and walls as a young woman walks into frame, joining the man who was observing the red splatters on the walls. “Excellent job. Get rid of the body and join me for a briefing. The child’s father- I want him dead. And I want that money on my desk by sundown, F-32. Do not let me down.” His voice is filled with a menacing threat as he brushes his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it slowly with a painful pressure. He knew that she held a higher pain tolerance, but she got the message anyways. 

The female soldier turns to leave, making eye contact with the camera. Her gaze was filled with absolutely no emotion. She was merely an empty shell- A toy for HYDRA to toss out later if she disobeyed. 

The video is paused at this exact frame, the female’s haunting gaze became the only thing on the screen. “F-32- Also known as Y/N L/N, was taken at the age of 7 and turned into a merciless weapon by HYDRA. She was meant to be a rebound in case their Winter Soldier got out of his cage-” Tony begins, giving a pointed glance towards Bucky before continuing. “Why am I showing this, you might ask? We have a new mission, boys. She has become a detriment to society and has been wreaking havoc left-and-right. They desensitized her, tortured her, and hid her for their personal gain. She became their play-thing under something they call ‘Project Ivy.’ It’s a lame name, I know. Could’ve done better. In all seriousness though, I was told that her skills may match or even surpass that of Tin-Can, over here.” Tony stands in front of the screen, gesturing towards Bucky. The latter-mentioned seemed too focused on the screen to respond in annoyance to the nickname. Her gaze was chilling and he was sure she could make others cower with one look. Was he this terrifying when he was the WInter Soldier?

Others seemed too caught up in the video, disgusted and angry to say the least. Whether they were angry at the soldier, or HYDRA itself, they couldn’t quite tell just yet. “Easy. We kill her.” Clint suggests, raising his eyebrows at the simplicity of the situation. Tony smirks and shakes his head. “Not so fast, Barton. I said her abilities could surpass that of Bucky. She’s enhanced. I’m not sure the extent of her powers, but they say she has some sort of shadowy-phantom limbs that protrude from her physical body. Something tells me that they’re stronger than we can imagine and we need to take precautions.” Sam seems incredulous. “Great, more super-powered people? What do you suggest we do? This is just another repeat of what happened- but worse.”  

Tony pulls out a silver suitcase, placing it on the table. He opens it and holds up a needle with clear liquid filling the tube. “Concentrated Lorazepam.” He sets it down and pulls open the mission file in his hand. “We managed to steal some notes from HYDRA and aside from the information I just shared with you, we also know her weakness. One dose of this bad-boy can knock her out in a heartbeat. Diluted solution with weaken her like anesthesia and keep her still.” He sets the file down and crosses his arms over his chest. “Our mission is to infiltrate the compound that we suspect she’s in and capture her dead-or-alive. She needs to be stopped.”

Steve had been silent this whole time, looking over at his best-friend for some sort of reaction. This girl had come from the same place as Bucky and experienced something so similar. She was connected to him in more ways than one. “Bucky? You alright?” he murmurs. Bucky looks away from the screen and smiles shakily. 

“Steve. I want to help her.” 

The room bursts out with a cacophony of shocked gasps and a chorus of arguments. “What the hell?” “How is that a good idea?” “Are you crazy?!” Steve clears his throat despite his own shock and hushes the others. He looks at his friend to elaborate.

“Think about it, guys. If I could be helped, so can she. We can get her on our team. She could be a big help to us. We don’t have to kill her; we don’t have to kill anyone.” A part of him wanted to help out of pity. The other part was afraid that he’d have to see more experiments die or get out of control in the hands of HYDRA.

“And what if she turns, Barnes? What then?” Tony interjects, scowling heavily.

Bucky breathed in deeply to calm his own nerves, making eye contact with tony in determination.

“Then we’ll kill her.”

hi, this might be way too personal a question and if it is I'm really sorry, but my psychiatrist recently brought up ECT as a possible treatment option for me and I was just wondering what it was like for you, and did it help at all. it feels like such an intense thing to go through but he says it can really help (but i know things work differently for each person). thank you so much, I'm sending you lots of love

Long answer, it’s under the cut

Hi. No need to apologize.  Let me give you one of my classic, incredibly long answers where I say the same thing a hundred different ways and do minimal editing before I post it.

ECT is a lot to think about, and I don’t feel that I was given the proper amount of information to make a well-rounded decision at the time.  In addition to this, if you search online, you’ll find a lot of people writing about their personal experiences.  These can be intimidating, as the accounts that appear online are often the very negative ones, where people feel they were pressured into the treatment and/or sustained significant memory impairment afterwards.  You’ll find people comparing ECT to lobotomies, and saying it shouldn’t be allowed except in the most extreme of cases.  I truly don’t believe that those accounts accurately represent the procedure, but I do recommend you read a few, so that you’re aware of the kind of worst-case scenarios that hospitals won’t tell you about.  I can give you an overview of my experience, and list what I believe are the main things that are important to consider before you make any decisions.  My biggest recommendations are that you a) gather as much information as you possibly can, and b) try TMS first.  I’ll talk a little more about TMS later on.

I got a course of ECT starting at the tail end of an inpatient stay at McLean hospital, through a 2-week residential DBT program on the same campus, and after I went home as well.  I don’t recall exactly how many treatments I was intended to get; I got quite a ways in, but didn’t end up finishing the entire course.I was 19 at the time.  Some of the patients in my inpatient ward felt that the hospital was a little too enthusiastic about performing ECT - while their treatment providers weren’t pushy per se, they suggested it to a lot of patients, and didn’t seem to share the typical view of ECT as a last or extreme resort that many treatment providers have.

McLean - while certainly not perfect - is considered one of the best psychiatric hospitals in the country, and is very much oriented towards research and trying out new and modern techniques.  As such, they’re more than happy to sign up patients for ECT and TMS (which is a less extreme option that I’ll bring up later).  My memory is foggy, but I definitely remember taking several surveys and approving them to be used for research purposes.

I specifically asked for ECT, because I was feeling desperate after two previous hospitalizations and a long list of failed medications.  They gave me a basic overview of ECT and TMS, and signed me up immediately once I confirmed that I did want ECT.

The hospital absolutely did not give me enough information.  I don’t think they fully conveyed the risks, and I think they are far too eager to sign up anyone with any interest in ECT as long as they’re old enough to medically consent.  I was 19 for christs sake, and no one asked me twice.  Honestly, even if they had properly prepared me, I probably still would have chosen to go forward with it, but that’s not an excuse.  And when I say I feel like I wasn’t properly informed, that’s after I took it upon myself to ask extensive questions beyond what was on the pamphlet they handed me.  I still didn’t get full answers.  If you’ve ever been put on a medication by a doctor who didn’t even list the most common side effects, you know how that feels.  Except instead of getting a headache and not being able to orgasm, you can get permanent brain damage.  So.

I don’t fully agree with many of the people online who say that patients are pressured into being lab rats, but I do think that the hospital’s mission to make progress in the psychiatric field is sometimes placed above their duty to provide a responsible level of care to their patients.  So basically the lab rat thing, but a little more forgiving.  And again, my experience is just from one hospital.  There are far worse places to be than McLean, and I’d imagine many of them offer ECT as well.

the procedure: one of the main issues with ECT is memory loss, so my memory of the actual procedure is a little fuzzy, but here’s what I do remember: you’re either wheelchaired to the ECT waiting room, or you walk there, depending on whether you’re inpatient or not. The first time I went there, and I think once or twice afterwards, they had me sit at a little computer station and fill out a basic survey on my symptoms (rate how true each statement is from 1-4, “I feel hopeless about the future,” etc.). Once it’s your turn, they take you to a small room where you lie down on a stretcher.  They might take your vitals, and they have you take off your jacket or roll up your sleeves so they can put little electrode stickers on you. I don’t think they have you change into a gown unless you’re wearing clothes they can’t get out of the way, like skinny jeans or something. They roll you into another room, and they put an IV in your arm and put you out with anesthesia.

You wake up shortly afterwards, in a long room with full of other people waking up in their stretchers, with medical gel in your hair. That’s one of my most vivid memories; always needing to shower afterwards to get the gel out of your hair.  Someone comes over and gives you some water or juice, or crackers, makes sure you’re feeling okay, and after a little while they clear you to go back to the waiting room.  If you’re inpatient, you’ll be wheeled back up to your ward, and if you’re outpatient, they have you sit in the waiting room for a little while longer before they let you walk back out. I always felt fine - well rested, even - after waking up, but some people get more nausea and whatnot. It’s unusual to have severe symptoms. I couldn’t give you a time estimate, but it’s a surprisingly short procedure, and most of your time is spent in the waiting room or the recovery area.

Afterwards, you’ll be very tired and sometimes spacey for the rest of the day. Once I was outpatient, and getting driven to and from my appointments, I would often fall asleep in the car on the way back.  Sometimes I wouldn’t remember things that had happened that same morning.

At first, it seemed to work. On my non-ECT days in inpatient, I found I had more energy, and felt less depressed.  After a few weeks, though, it petered out and I stopped feeling positive effects from it.  I forget who was monitoring my process, but it was mutually decided that there was no point in finishing the full course.

That was about a year and a half ago. Since then, I’ve noticed that I’m more forgetful than before. I’m trying to work out my brain these days (which I probably should have done right away) to try to restore my memory, and many people who do experience short term memory damage say it fades after a few months to a year.  Even if it sticks around (like mine seems to have done), it’s seldom a level of damage that significantly impairs quality of life.  Like I said, though, there are plenty of horror stories online from people who suffered significant, permanent brain damage and have definitely been impaired by memory issues.  Just because it’s uncommon doesn’t mean it can’t happen.  I assumed that because I was young and in relatively good health, I wouldn’t have as many issues as I ended up having.

In addition to the short term memory impairment, I lost the majority of two years of memories.  If you asked me to tell you about the college courses I took during that time, I could only give you a few course titles, a vague impression of what one or two professors were like, and absolutely none of the information I learned.  I had a major confrontation with a family member during that time, that I only remembered happening because my dad brought it up recently. I still only have a vague idea of what was said.  Even my memories before that time are more blurry and distant than they used to be, and many memories that used to be present in my mind are only familiar once someone else reminds me.

Which brings me to some points to consider before making any decisions (in no particular order):

1. Being put under general anesthesia multiple times a week isn’t good for you.  This was a risk that wasn’t even mentioned to me.  It’s not like I didn’t know anesthesia isn’t good for you, but as a desperate, suicidal 19 year old, I was understandably not making the most balanced choices.  And for all the hospital knew, I could have been a very uneducated person.  I don’t blame the hospital for the decisions I made, but it should have been their job to educate me about the risks, make sure I fully understood them, and to the best of their ability, make sure that I was making as rational a decision as a suicidal 19 year old in her third inpatient ward can be expected to make.

I don’t actually know, but I assume the dose they give you for ECT is lower than it might be for surgeries.  I would still recommend you do some research on the long term effects of general anesthesia, because they can be quite concerning.

2. You can lose a significant number of memories and sustain damage to your working memory.  One of the reasons ECT is often considered an extreme resort is because of how common, how profound, and how permanent the side effects can be.  It’s like looking up a new medication that you’re taking on drugs.com and discovering that some of the most severe side effects that you’d expect to be under less common or rare are actually among the most common.  Older people or those with pre-existing neurological issues are more prone to damage from ECT, but it truly can happen to anyone. There is no way to predict it beforehand, and there is no way to tell what damage you will sustain based on how you feel during the treatments.  I sort of subconsciously assumed that, because I often felt fine and recovered more quickly than those around me in the treatment, that I wasn’t getting the bad side effects at all.  Nope.  You’ll often feel loopy, sleepy, or spaced out during the course of the treatment, and you’ll lose a lot of your immediate memories during that time, so it’s impossible to tell what kind of effects you’ll end up with in the long term.

Then again, the treatment does wonders for some people.  It’s a difficult question - do I try a treatment that may or may not help me at all, which may or may not give me long-term memory damage, but which has the potential to make a massive improvement or cure me altogether?  No one can answer that for you.

3. It’s likely you won’t be given an accurate impression of the treatment by the facility providing it.  Stories on the internet will give you the worst impression of ECT.  The hospital that provides it will give you the best impression of ECT.  In my opinion, the “truth” is somewhere in the middle.  Still, ASK.  Be irritating.  Drill whoever you’re talking to.  Ask them what the worst case scenario is.  Ask them at what point in psychiatric treatment they feel it’s appropriate to introduce that kind of risk.  They’ll tell you about the people whose lives were changed by ECT, but ask them about the people whose lives weren’t changed.  Ask them about the people like me, whose lives weren’t ruined, but weren’t saved either.  Ask how likely it is that you’ll end up with a moderate amount of damage and no benefit.  Remember that you can always have ECT in the back of your mind, but once it’s done, you can’t undo it.

Looking at websites like mayoclinic and whatnot does not provide an accurate impression of the risks. It just doesn’t. There’s no one source - except me, of course :))) - that will give you a truly accurate, balanced impression of what ECT is like.  I just googled a few sites to see what they had to say, and their descriptions make ECT sound like a walk in the park.  It’s not.

It’s not a decision that you need to make quickly.  Again, if I had been told I wasn’t allowed to get ECT until I was out of the hospital and judged to be a little more stable, I still probably would have done it.  But again, everyone is not me.

4. How will you feel having ECT as a possibility in reserve vs. having tried it and failed?  Before ECT, the stakes of my psychiatric and theraputic treatment weren’t quite so high.  They were worth a solid try, but there was always this mystical treatment that I could get if my depression got to the point where all that was left was this “extreme resort.”  I always thought it was strange and probably for insurance reasons that ECT was only for extreme cases, if it had such potential to turn my entire life around.  Why wait year after year, wasting my life trying every class of antidepressant and driving 45 minutes once a week to tell a woman I paid to listen to me that yes, I was still depressed?  Clearly I needed help, so why waste all this time making sure nothing else could possibly work first?  It gave me a sense of hope, but it also put me in a mindset where I found it difficult to fully commit to the therapy I had at the time.

The aftermath of ECT required coming to terms with some tough truths.  It was never a miracle cure.  There were perfectly legitimate reasons why it was reserved for extreme cases.  With that sense of hope gone, I felt crushed, but in a sense, I’m better off.  I feel hopeless very often, and I feel desperate, but at least I’m desperate enough to throw myself into the therapy I have, rather than wonder about the possibilities of what I don’t have.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that ECT would fail for you.  It might change your life.  A lot of people who are helped by it will go back every 6-12 months for a “tune-up.”  But I think it’s a significant enough decision that you need to evaluate how not getting ECT could affect your attitude towards other treatments, as well as being prepared to cope in case you try it and it fails.  You need to enter the treatment with the mindset that ECT failing does not mean you’re a lost cause.  It’s an extreme resort, but it’s never your last resort.  Many things - even the effectiveness of different medications - can change with time.  You can even have another go at ECT years down the road, because sometimes it works differently once you’ve had even more time to age and mature.

5. It’s not considered an extreme resort because it’s a risky-but-potentially-miraculous cure.  Like I said in the last point, I’d held misconceptions about ECT and the reason it’s not done more often for a very long time.  It’s considered an extreme resort because it’s an intense procedure, that most people don’t need, and which doesn’t have the greatest track record.  Some people have life-changing experiences with ECT.  That’s fantastic.  But I’ll bet the reason they don’t advertise the statistics is because an awful lot of people don’t.  Medication and talk therapy has a much higher success rate and much less severe or permanent downsides than ECT.  I know I’ve said it a million different ways, but it’s an awful lot of risk for something that doesn’t seem to have a particularly high success rate.

6. TMSTMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) is like a less extreme, and much more recently invented version of ECT.  I don’t know the exact details of the treatment, but my roommate at McLean (a woman in her 40s, who had gone up and down during the years but still hadn’t given up) was getting it at the same time I was getting ECT.  Instead of shocking your brain and triggering a brain seizure, TMS is a constant electrical pulse. You stay awake the whole time. It also has potential negative side effects, but they’re generally less extreme than those of ECT.  If you’re in the US, many insurance companies have already approved coverage of TMS.  Many patients who were receiving TMS at McLean were doing so as a less extreme alternative to ECT, with the plan that if TMS was ineffective, they would be open to moving up to ECT.  If TMS can help you, it’s much better to avoid undertaking the risks of ECT altogether.  I was desperate at the time and didn’t see the point of going for the milder treatment, but in hindsight I think it’s a much wiser idea.

I’ve actually thought about TMS for myself.  I don’t know what the likelihood of it working for me now, a year and a half after ECT not working, and I’m concerned that it would make my mild tinnitus worse, but it might be a possibility.  Again, it’s a more extreme treatment than most psychiatric medications and talk therapy, but it’s not on the level of being put under general anesthesia and having a brain seizure two or three times a week.

Lessons in Looking 14/?

Title: A Crappy Vacation, part 2

Words: 1682

a/n: This continues on from part 13.

When they get to the ER, Marla sees Evie for just a few seconds before she’s whisked off elsewhere. A nurse tells her that she’ll keep her updated on Evie as she has to sit there and be monitored for further signs of shock. It’s irritating because she wants to be there, she wants to know what’s going on with her friend, but she’s stuck in a bed.

The updates are slow to come in. The open fracture she knew about from the paramedics, but the shoulder and knee dislocations were new. According to the nurse, the swelling was too great with both so they were simply being kept stabilized for the moment while Evie had surgery on her broken arm. X-rays showed no skull fractures and no other broken bones save for the arm.

Marla herself was still feeling off, a little light-headed and nauseous, but she signed the AMA papers and nearly ran up to the fourth floor where the surgery waiting room was. The wait seems long and every time she checks with a nurse, she’s told that Evie is doing fine but nothing more. The nurses seem irritated with her questioning but then it has only been a couple hours, she supposes. Chuck calls her at one point, but she ignores it because just his name is enough to make her angry. It’s him and his stupid company that got them into this mess. Evie wasn’t getting into such serious trouble until she landed at his company. She does respond to Nate’s texts. Marla waits until Evie’s out of surgery and recovery and being taken up to a room to call.

“How’s she doing,” Nate asks in lieu of a greeting.

“Waking up some, according to the doctor. Surgery went fine, but they’re still waiting on the swelling to go down to take care of the dislocations.”

“And you? How are you holding up? That had to be scary to deal with.”

“It was, but I’m doing better now that she’s out of surgery. I’m ready to write her resignation letter though.”

“You can’t do that. She loves working there.”

“It’s dangerous for her. She’s always been rather careless, but it’s worse now. How many times in the last year has she been seriously injured and had a long hospital stay?”

“I know, but if you force her to quit, you’re going to lose her.”

Marla sighs. “I didn’t say I was going to, but I want to. I just… I want the old Evie back and this job has made her something different. It’s wearing her out. It’s wearing me out.” Her voice drops at the end in defeat.

“Do you want me to fly out and stay with you?”

“No, you have your GRE coming up. You need to be there to study, not sitting here dealing with an obstinate Evie.”

“I can study just as well there as I can here. Possibly better because I won’t have to worry about you two.”

“And who will take care of Sir Galahad? You’re helping a lot by looking after him.”

“I can find someone.” Nate pauses. “Look, just think about it. Okay?”

“Okay. And thanks for offering.”

“Keep me updated?”

“Of course.”

They end the call soon after and Marla goes up to check on Evie, who’s settled in her room and is somewhat awake but not quite coherent. Before she leaves, the nurse, who’s doing some final checks, informs Marla that they’ll try later tonight to reduce the dislocations, if the swelling goes down enough.

“Hey, Evie,” Marla says, trying to keep her voice cheerful as she sits in the chair next to the bed. Normally, she’d find a spot on the edge of the bed but she’s worried that anywhere she sat, she might cause Evie to hurt.

Evie mutters something that might be a hello, turning her head slowly. Her eyes are half open and glazed.

“Just rest, okay, Evie?” Marla doesn’t get a response, but she doesn’t expect one. Her friend is still coming out of the anesthesia and is dealing with another severe concussion. It’s very unlikely that she’ll be coherent for a while. Marla sends a quick text to Nate to let him know that she’s okay before settling in for another wait.

Her evening is spent sitting and helping Evie through the waves of nausea that come with her concussion. When the nausea turns to vomiting, she helps her sit up quickly until the bed catches up, holding an emesis basin in her free hand. The motions cause Evie to tremble in pain, between her head pounding and her still dislocated shoulder. They’ve given her painkillers, but don’t want her so out of it with the concussion. It means that when she’s finished vomiting and Marla and the nurse set her back against the mattress, she’s pale and whimpering in pain. They have to remind her to stay on her back, pushing her down carefully.

“We may have to restrain her if she won’t stay still,” the nurse says during a brief moment when Evie has given up the fight, her breathing slowing to a steady pace as she moans lowly.

“M… Mar…” she mutters. Her eyes are half open and glazed, features pinched as she turns her head to look at Marla.

“Right here, Evie.” Marla takes Evie’s uninjured hand to help keep her calm. Restraints are the last thing she wants them to have to do with Evie. “You need to stay calm.”

“Hurts.”

“I know, but you need to stay calm. It’ll help. I promise.”

“No… hurts.” Evie squirms a little, which leads to her gasping and crying out in pain. Before Marla knows it, the nurse is pulling a set of soft restraints out.

“It’s for her benefit,” the nurse says as she works to put Evie’s limbs in the restraints.

“Can’t you just sedate her?”

“Not with the concussion. Doctor’s orders.”

“Wha…?” Evie weakly pulls away from the restraints.

“It…” Marla swallows the tears that come at Evie’s pleading. “It’s for your own good, Evie. Just let them do this, okay?”

“Marla?” Though Evie’s voice is weak, the plea is clear. Still, she stops moving. The nurse quickly finishes with the restraints.

“I’ll speak with the doctor about further treatment. He’ll be by later to check on the swelling,” the nurse says before leaving. The adrenaline that made Evie more alert is wearing off, leaving her in a state of delirium. Marla stands beside the bed, a hand in Evie’s lost as to what to do. She hopes that Evie will simply go to sleep.

Evie dozes, waking occasionally to call out for Marla and asks why when she finds that her limbs won’t move. Each time breaks Marla’s heart and she does her best to calm her. A few more times the nausea flares up and even though it’s the dry heaves, Marla works to get her in a position so that she doesn’t risk choking on anything that might come up.

It’s not until the next day, late morning, that the swelling is down enough that the doctor is willing to reduce the dislocations. To help her, Evie’s been given a high dose of painkillers and mild sedative. She’s exhausted from a night of catnaps and they’re worried that anything they do might cause her to tense up, making the reductions more difficult. Fortunately, they don’t make Marla leave, not that she would’ve let them. They have her at the head of the bed, talking quietly with Evie to reassure her that she’ll be okay. She’s been given instructions to do what she needs to do to keep Evie relaxed. The restraints are gone, replaced by a few nurses, who gently hold her in place, working with the doctor seamlessly as he tackles the shoulder first.

Marla sees Evie’s tired eyes go wide as the doctor moves the arm. He’s careful not to damage the bandaging around the break.

“You’re fine, Evie. It’s going to feel painful, but it has to be done. Just keep looking at me and think about how happy Gal is going to be to see us.” Marla injects as much joy and encouragement into her voice as she repeats the same phrases. When the doctor is just finishing with the shoulder, the socket nearly back in place, Evie squirms and cries out. The nurses move quickly to lay down over her, holding her in place.

“Done,” the doctor says. “Let’s get this bandaged in place before we move on to the knee. That’ll give her a little time to rest, too.” They work to strap the arm to Evie’s chest, immobilizing the shoulder so it can heal.

“Okay, you ready for the knee now,” he asks Evie. She looks up at Marla, a question in her eyes.

“It has to be done, Evie. It’s best done now,” Marla says.

Evie nods.

“It’s going to feel much like your shoulder, but you need to not tense up, okay,” the doctor says. When Evie nods again, he and the nurses start to work again.

Unfortunately, Evie can’t help but tense up as they’re working, even as Marla talks with her and pets her hair to calm her. After a couple aborted attempts where the doctor reminds Evie to calm down, he decides to simply go for it. For Evie, the pain is excruciating and she jumps back, out of the nurses’ grasp, trying to curl up and away from the doctor, but he and the nurses roughly pull her back and begin bracing her knee. As they work, Evie is crying and Marla seething. She wants these people gone. Before they leave, they put ice packs on both joints.

“Hey, they’re gone. It’s over,” Marla says quietly as she moves to the side of the bed so Evie can see her.

“Hurts,” Evie says between tears.

“I’m sure it does. But it’ll settle out. Okay? It’s just the immediate aftermath. It’ll be fine.” Marla squeezes Evie’s hand.

“Pr…promise?”

“Of course. I promise that it’ll get better.” Marla hopes she’s right.

Summary of everything I’ve posted

By now, I’ve made a lot of posts and I tend to be pretty wordy, so I’m going summarize each post here and link to the original post if you want more information. I have my main blog where I put my text posts, and a side blog where I post pictures. I only posted one set of pictures on the main blog which is me in my compression vest. Any other pictures are on my side blog with a link in the relevant text post on the main blog. This way you don’t have to see any pictures if you get queasy about wounds or are somewhere you can’t look at the before pictures (or just don’t want to).

 Everything so far

The first post I made with background info, very basic information about my insurance situation, how I chose my surgeon, how I talked to my parents about getting top surgery, and a description of my first three gender therapy sessions. We mostly talked about dysphoria and what I wanted from gender therapy. We also talked about a letter my therapist would write to give to insurance or the doctors and the facility I would do the surgery at. My therapy sessions fell into a pattern of spending half the time talking about gender and dyshphoria stuff, and half the time talking about whatever unrelated stuff I needed to talk about. I started gender therapy at my university then went home for the summer so I had two gender therapists. Also includes a link to the website of the facility I did my surgery at.

First Calls

I called the facility and was told how they handle insurance, and what the general process for getting top surgery is. They require six months of gender therapy and/or six months on testosterone. A consolation can be set up within two weeks and can be done before the six months requirement is met. I suggest doing this sooner rather than later because it can take up to 90 days to get everything with insurance settled.

Therapy Session 4

We talked about anxiety over coming out on Facebook since I was about to do that, and what my plans were moving forward.

Coming out on Facebook

I felt this was something I needed to do before getting the surgery, and it ended up going really well for me.

Therapy Session 5

This was my last session with my first gender therapist and he gave me two copies of a letter of recommendation for top surgery.

New Gender Therapist and Update on Gender Therapy

Things were really straightforward with setting up sessions with my first gender therapist since it was through my university. It got more complicated when I went back home. In the first post, I went over how I first went about trying to find a trans* specific gender therapist, and set up a consultation with the organization I found.

               It didn’t end up working out with the first place I tried, mainly because I have a mental disorder they weren’t comfortable dealing with. The person I met with felt I needed more help with that mental disorder (I didn’t) and insisted I see someone for both dysphoria and the completely unrelated mental disorder. I did remember that when I had seen a therapist for the mental disorder a couple years back we touched on dysphoria and he seemed fine with it. I looked him up, confirmed he did gender therapy and set an appointment with him.

Therapy Session 6

We spent the first half of the session going over what had been going on in my life since our last session and how things were with my mental disorder. (He agreed I was managing it well and didn’t actually need to do anymore work on that). We spent the second half talking more about my dysphoria and what my plans for surgery were.

Therapy Session 7

We talked more about the same things, and how I felt about the upcoming consultation appointment with the surgeon.

Consultation appointment

I went over what things were like when I arrived, the preliminary meeting I had with a coordinator, a breakdown of how insurance works and the cost of the surgery (the cost of the anesthesia isn’t included in the total. I didn’t realize that until later), meeting with the surgeon, questions I asked, what it was like having pictures taken, what the exam was like, and my overall impressions of the facility and it’s staff. They do have staff that speak Spanish. I gave them my letter from my first therapist, and they said it would really help speed things up.

Information

I was given several papers during the consultation about the cost breakdown, financing, the surgeon, and the surgery.

Therapy Session 8

We talked about the usual things, and my therapist offered to write me a letter if I wanted another one.

Therapy Session 9

One of my relatives sent me a letter trying to talk me out of getting the surgery, so we talked about that.

Getting a date set for surgery

I talked about hearing back from insurance and how setting up a date for surgery works and what my plans were for the first week pf recovery.

Therapy Session 10

We talked about how I was feeling about the upcoming surgery and made plans do a couple sessions post-op once I feel up for it.

Letter from insurance

I received a letter from my insurance provider that basically just let me know they had seen my case, but didn’t say if or how much they would cover. It was kind of confusing, but I posted a scan of the letter.

Preparation and Doctor recommendations

Things I personally did to prepare for surgery and things the facility suggested I do.

Pre-op appointment

I talked about my impressions again, lab work, and paperwork.

Information Packets

I was given information packets at the pre-op appointment. They were quite lengthy, so I summarized the key points.

Things to get

A list of things I got prior to surgery

Surgery Day

I had to get up early. I went over the procedure leading up to going under anesthesia and what it was like waking up. I wasn’t in much pain, just had very limited mobility and felt really stiff. I slept most of the day. I didn’t have much of an appetite and needed the nausea medicine. My mother helped with a lot and kept track of medication times.

Day 2/ Post-op appointment

Had to get up early for the first post-op appointment. Not much change from the surgery day as far as mobility and sleep go. I didn’t have any nausea, so I went off that medication. I had extra compression wrappings for a day. These were taken off during the post-op appointment, so I just had the compression vest on.

Day 3

I felt more rested and my apatite started to come back. Mobility was a little better. No noticeable body odor yet.

Day 4

I went off the medication for muscle spasms and chest tightness. My apatite returned fully, but I needed to take a laxative. (Constipation is normal). I started taking half doses of the pain medication. I was still sleeping a lot. I posted a link to a picture of my chest with the vest off and only the bandages I can’t take off.

Day 5

The laxative did it’s job and I switched from prescription pain meds to a full dose of Tylenol. I felt better, and mobility and flexibility improved some. I managed to bathe my lower half, but started noticing a little body odor.

Day 6

I went down to a half dose of Tylenol without much pain. I have insomnia, and by day 6 it was starting to come back. Mobility improved with a larger range of motion. My face started peeling a little like it would if I had a sunburn. (I later asked the doctor. He said antibiotics can do that.) Body odor is definitely a thing now.

Pets

We have a young, energetic, 50lb dog. I was a little worried about how she was going to be around me, but she recognized that I was injured and backed off when I turned down her attempts at play.

Day 7

I’m off all pain meds now. My mother took time off work to be with me during recovery but she goes back tomorrow. My best friend came over so the dog could get used to him being around when he takes over tomorrow. I had a lot of energy today, and had to keep reminding myself to take it easy. I was still on bedrest and just talked or played around on my tablet. I also posted a link to a picture showing the normal range of bruising you might get.

Day 8

Insomnia is back to being a problem, so I haven’t been getting much sleep. My best friend came over not long after my parents left for work and we spent the day watching TV. Not much pain, and continued improvement in mobility.

Pain

I have a high pain tolerance, so I’ve been rating my pain pretty low the whole time. I posted a link to a pain scale that actually describes what the numbers (1-10) feel like.

Day 9/ Post-op appointment

I had to get up early again for the second post-op appointment. The bandages were taken off so I saw my chest without anything for the first time. I talked about the procedure moving forward since it’s a little different now. I can shower now, but I have to shower with my back to the water, which I did that night, and I have to change the dressings on my nipples twice a day. I was a little tired after the appointment, but I’m not sure how much of that was due to insomnia.

Before and After Pictures

I posted a link to pictures I took before surgery and day 9 after surgery.

Dependency

A list of things I did and did not need help with