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so-hereiam · 5 years

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The Growth of Infections

How two separate skin infections on the same leg on the same spot exactly one year apart sum up the latest 12 months of my life

Currently, I’m sitting on my bed with a rather swollen ankle exactly one year to the week since the last swollen ankle due to the same culprit—an infection. This time, it was my own fault (last time was my own fault too, actually), as I should’ve let go of the freaked out cat much earlier than I did. However, I was intent on bringing Stumpy to my house so he could hang out with me and fill the void in my heart for cats. (A few extra details: since the beginning of last year, I was praying that somehow a cat would enter my life—at the end of last year, my family here in Palau adopted four cats. Another detail: Stumpy is named Stumpy because he was born with about half of his tail missing—that’s not super important, but I felt I owed him at least that much. Additional detail: I love cats and nothing, even a serious skin infection, will ever change that.)

The attack happened on Monday night. And by attack, I mean me, very determined to not let Stumpy run away from me outside, holding onto him for too long and allowing him to viciously bite my lower leg. Immediately, it was a bloodbath. All I remember is juggling a psychotic cat as Wenita yelled, “Let go!” and Duke sweetly watched while tenderly holding Baby Girl (the other, non-psycho cat). Then, blood streaming down my leg, into my flip flop, and me slipping on it as I attempted to run to the house to wash it off. I’ve never been seriously bitten by a cat, so this was a new experience, and I of course had enough time to take a picture of the mutilated leg. I’m exaggerating, of course. At the time, it didn’t hurt that badly, but for some reason, I was very afraid that it might get infected. I cleaned it with alcohol, then washed it with soap, then covered it with a bandaid and went to bed.

The next day at school, it was hurting a lot. It was uncomfortable to walk on, but I was just pushing through it. I told a few of my kids what happened but other than that, I didn’t think much of it. Until later that night, when it reaaaaaally started to hurt, and it looked suspiciously red, and large drops of puss were oozing out of the four fang marks. TMI? Sorry. I ran to the grocery store and bought some hydrogen peroxide and antibiotic cream and did another attempt at healing myself. Then the next day (today) happened, and I continued to limp around all day as the pressure on that leg caused some pretty bad pain. By early morning, I knew that I had to go get it checked out (and if you know me, that’s a big step because I hate doctors, hospitals, needles, anything to do with addressing any health concerns for my person). After school, I headed to the clinic and went through the whole process. I waited, then I was admitted, then I waited, then they had some blood drawn to see if the infection was in there, then I waited, then I talked to the doctor and she said upon seeing it, “YEP, that’s infected,” then she subscribed some antibiotics and cream, then I waited, then the in-clinic pharmacy gave me the goods, then I left.

So now we’re back to the start—me sitting on my bed with a rather swollen ankle. I can’t help but think about how completely random it is that exactly one year ago today I was in the same predicament, but slightly different.

We had just had our Welcome Back Bash at school. This was before I really knew what I was in for that year. I still was a bit shy around the kids, still didn’t quite know what I was doing with teaching, but overall I was excited for the year and the new life. I was in charge of the soccer station for the Bash, and I developed two blisters on the back of my heels from my shoes. Of course, I thought nothing of it and continued with my life. That same weekend, I was headed back to Canada for three days for one of my closest friends’ weddings. I didn’t think at all about the blisters, but got on my first out of four (?) flights and slept. The details are foggy, but all I know is that somewhere between Koror and Vancouver, my ankle blew up like a balloon and I ended up limping all over multiple airports to catch my flights. Finally, at the last one, I just flattened myself out on the ground at the gate and propped my foot up on a chair. The ankle was big, red, and in super-bad pain. I finally got to Vancouver, so happy to see all my peeps again, and just ignored the pain thinking that it would eventually go down (my feet swell a LOT while flying, so I didn’t realize it was because of the blister—after this trip, I learned the magic of compression socks and it’s changed my life). I was texting my mom about the injury and she, of course, was freaking out about it and telling me I had to go to the hospital. She was arriving the next day, so I told her that it would be fine and not to worry about it. She, of course, did not not worry about it and sent me as many things that she could about infections and the symptoms and side-effects. I read a few but was extremely tired from jumping time zones and went to take a little nap. But, when I started feeling chest pains, I realized it was not my time to die yet. One of the screenshots from my mom listed chest pain as a sign of a serious infection (cellulitis), so a couple of my closest friends took me to the emergency room. Long story short, I got an IV, blood work (THE WORST needle experience of my life—I was dehydrated so she couldn’t get it from my arm and had to, after many tries, get it from my wrist—I cringe just typing this), antibiotics, and cream, and a very handsome doctor telling me I had cellulitis. Autocorrect just changed that to “cellulite”—that too, but not as serious of a condition.

So, two different infections, same leg, same problem, one year apart by the week. It seems like a strange coincidence, but I realized that these two experiences illustrate the difference and the growth that this past year has catalyzed. Because of what happened last year, I learned what to do better this year—not put it off, go to the clinic ASAP, get the medicine to tackle the issue before it got worse. I learned and I grew from that painful situation. When the next painful situation came around, I was ready.

It goes so much deeper than infections. Last year was more of a painful experience for me mentally and emotionally. Many times, even spiritually. Though I knew that the discomfort and struggle was worth it, I still had a very hard time feeling like every aspect of my life was shaky and failing. This summer was also very hard for me because I was wrestling with how hard the year was, how burned out I was, how much I was dreading going back. And that’s not something that you would want to hear from a missionary—that they are literally dreading going back. Not going back, though, was not an option for me because I was determined to follow through and I knew that God had placed me here for two years. As I was landing in Palau a few weeks ago, my heart was full of discomfort and emptiness. I didn’t want to do another year like the last year because I was very sure I wouldn’t make it through and still be the kind of person that I want to be.

But from that painful experience, I learned. And I grew. And God was with me every step of the way. Over the summer, he showed me the problems with my attitude. He allowed me to be reminded of what life is like without him. He filled me with the motivation to be a better teacher, person, and sharer of his love. Slowly, as I dragged my emotional feet getting ready for school again (thank God for my parents and their help in doing what I didn’t have the mental energy to do), something changed. I don’t even know how to explain what changed, but hope slowly regrew within me. Excitement for the potential of the year grew. A desire to reconnect with God and be of service again grew. I learned from the painful experience. I learned how to do better. How to seek better. How to process better. How to love better. And while I am far from having even a little bit of anything figured out, it’s growth. And it’s infectious.

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gvaf-radio-blog · 5 years

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I was laying in bed trying to not think about the rejection when the crying fit started, normally it goes away after a bit but this welled up and I felt an emotion like onto a rage induced tornado surging through me and I pounded the floor screaming like I lost a limb to a bear trap and started to pray to God, keep in mind I am a Satanist, to either help me find a way to get the love of my life back or to give me the means to end my life. Satan was very understanding but reminded me to call them first next time since Satan never told me I was damned for being born pansexual and they did turn me on to better fashion and literature, sorry Satan.

It had been going on like this for the better part of July and there were several things going on in my life at the time one of those was a firm belief that I had grown too old, too fat, too broken to be any use to anyone other than to make others feel better and be target practice for the Russian Cupidi who seems very intent on making others fall in love with me on the other side of the continent, little fuckers have surprisingly deep laughs I found out . There was a person I was convinced was the love of my life because they seemed to understand me, never made unreasonable demands of me ( I thought) and to put it simply we could not be in a room alone ever. We worked well together in fact each time we would meet it ended in us kissing and tearfully saying I love you to each other while holding each other head to head crying. Everytime I heard a slight Russian tinged laugh. We were for a short time had an almost family, an almost family is where things are just off and need adjustments. I wanted tp make us a full family badly I wanted this family to happen because these kids were at one time treated like mine own, I am a simple and boring man except for the Cupidi and a stalker with cat ears who keeps leaving dead birds on my front stoop.

So yes I was that fool everyone has laughed at in a heart break fueled misery that pop songs and movies lie to us and say “ AH but tis only the third act! The two distant lovers will be reunited and the love song with start after the credits”. I want to start rounding up the con artist that make a living by filling empty headed children with these notions of true love or that love conquers all and sodomize them with live lobsters. I don’t want to violate ethically challenged people with shellfish everyday, just on those days when I have to deal with the doll eyed masses, ok so basically every day I was trying to give myself the benefit of the doubt. The Ex had asked me if the reason I wanted to get back together was because they were a “sure thing” I told her that they were really a long shot but if I didn’t try then I couldn’t live with myself. Fast forward a few weeks and several insulting explanations later and I am now turning over all the reasons I am broken goods and that I should not rise above my station because I deserve to be alone, i’m scum, I’m why baby jesus cries and milk spoils when I walk into the room. I started taking pot shots at the local Cupidi with my compound bow but it was hard to aim with eyes full of tears and the edible kicking in finally. I don’t know how to say fuck you in Russian but I think I know the sound of the word.

Next we find me red eyed muttering some gibberish that’s been fueled by what I would find out later to be a suspected mental illness that is only half way being treated with medication and therapy. To give you a funny and disturbing visual. After not eating or sleeping for several days I looked like what could be described as a cross between a fat Reinfeld and a goth George Costanza , or Meatloaf on a bad day. I give you options for your visuals, am I not merciful?

It’s now sometime between one and five A.M and I am looking up the price of the least expensive .45 handgun because I’m poor and I’ll be getting some extra money soon because I turn thirty nine in a week I do not want to be thirty nine so I start looking for american style solutions, happy fucking birthday. I chose this caliber because having some medical training and studying the wonderful world of trauma I got to see in full detail what a self inflicted head wound looks like and what a person's life is when the bullet doesn’t take enough grey matter. I didn’t want to be alive then I sure as hell didn’t want to live as a joke character from a Garth Ennis story so I was going to get a bigger bullet . America, fuck yeah.

so I started to make my final birthday plan and feel at peace with having my last ride of Clove’s, bourbon and a good pub hamburger then, Tchüess. BANG! Obviously I didn’t buy the gun to end my misery and embarrassment as my brain was telling me I needed, because instead my brain going into OH FUCK mode was throwing everything it had at me to save the ship. Then it hit pay dirt. I rediscovered a natural emotional energy that put my mind into a laser focus clearing the fog and lies away just enough to stop my self destruction and restart the rebuilding I began in the winter. The emotional energy that saved me from turning my head into goo goes by the name of pure fucking spite.

I realized that my idiocy levels had reached a critical mass when the Cupidi in hazmat suits who seem to be , in Russian , bitching about extracting me to go get recharged . They came down to take me back to a containment unit that will refill my cynicism back to optimal and lethal fuck off capacity. After my IV of coffee and Monster™ grape was removed I was set loose again into the wilds of Southeast Portland to reconnect my brain with seething hatred that I somehow misplaced my hatred during the heartache attack between Southeast Division and Southeast Clinton street where I was bludgeoned with a baseball bat by the woman who was wearing cat ears. I was on a time limit because I had to do this quickly and retract my steps before my appointment with a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner at two P.M later that day. I managed to find my hatred , my senses and a new found desire to attack any human with those fucking anime cat ears on their head and entered the office and was treated like a human being not a Cro Magnon sociopath who might try to kill people on the train, it was a nice change of pace honestly.

We talked about my past trauma and some of the diagnosis that where off base and some that came close to the mark but the main thing we talked about was the depression, the depression that had me looking for a gun as a treatment plan. This Nurse Practitioner pinpointed everything that I had to hide from others or train myself not to do in less than thirty minutes, Let me give you a bit of perspective.

Most of the mental health professionals I worked with in the past used a method I call flow chart counseling, example:

Therapist sees me walk into the door, therapist will ask if I drink if yes how many drinks in a week, if no move on to the next question. Therapist: Mister Cromag do you drink?

Me: yeah, I like a good beer, or wine I take a shinning to good bourbons as well.

“Therapist now flows to follow up questions”

Therapist: How many drinks per week?

Me: Well, I like to have a drink that pairs with my dinner and some weekends I’ll have a bit more during games or socialization depending on who’s around.

“Therapist now moves down to alcoholism”

Therapist: how long have you been an alcoholic?

Me: I’m sorry what?

Therapist: You binge drink Mister Cromag, more than four drinks per week means substance abuse.

Me: No it means I like the taste of a stout. “Moves down the chart to denial”

Therapist: We need to find you an addiction specialist.

Me: You think my drinking is bad, wait until I tell you about my porn collection.

After that exchange I was referred to a physical therapist to help with carpal tunnel and after a traumatized therapist had to call security all while frantically trying to find a flowchart for the psychotically horny they made a suggestion about me having an Oedipus complex.

So you now see what I mean, a lot of professionals never got to the heart of it and there are other stories where I’ve had the professionals all but sneer at me when my symptoms are presented. So this Nurse Practitioner was a nice change of pace and with the discussion about my issues, what I thought I might have been dealing with (sometimes people see that I do have some form of intelligence and not just hit thing with club real hard unga bunga) we then worked out what medication I needed to treat the thing I was dreading, being diagnosed with Bipolar 1.

Bipolar and ADHD share many of the same characteristics and as I’ve learned if you have one the other is more than likely there it just needs to be screened for. Bipolar is also a hereditary form of mental illness which makes it a bit unique where others are mostly trauma induced but Bipolar just kinda waits for something to happen and when nothing does it creates its own fun. To add to this good time Bipolar is classified as a “mood disorder” your highs are hyperactive boarderlining and often going into a full true manic state of mind and body, not nearly as fun as it sounds. Then the lows are soul crushing affairs that amplify the depression and then takes the lies you brain tells you and creates a story based on people around you, your fears, past trauma and then makes you this poisoned lullaby cake that tastes like candy feels like medicine until you fall to your knees paralyzed and the fangs sink into your back and you see too late what is having you for dinner tonight.

So that’s a quick and blurry on Bipolar 2, I have Bipolar 1 which means I get all of that plus the added fun of hallucinations, and not the type Terrence Mckenna taught us about. These are things that just manifest as if they are real life like if you were in a film and it was edited without warning and in this new situation you now have to improvise a reality, any reality, this is why I take *drugs prescribed and other. The other issue is that it feels like my memories get remixed and things that happened now have a new twist, a paranoid hurtful twist. Good example of this is when I was making a terminal wishlist and believed that there were people who truly wanted me to die because I interpreted their actions as malicious. Another example is I was walking home to the apartments around ten or twelve years ago, I was walking home at the time with groceries and when I got through the front door there was construction going on at the apartment above me. I sleep days and at best i’ll get four hours due to shit employer, new born child, a girlfriend that was Sybil the next generation who completely refused to get treatment because she was a psych major and thought she was the heroin to overcome all odds in a lifetime movie. So on top of this my mental illness is not in check, no insurance and if I mention medication at work I could get fired.

I wish this was a part I made up but I mentioned I was on antidepressants at one time and they removed me from two positions back to entry level until I got clean off celexa, Not allowed to do the fun drugs and then punished for using the boring ones no idea why I stayed there for eight and a half years.

Back to the construction, I get home try to put my groceries away and one of the workers says he needs to do something in the bedroom I tell him to get bent , he calls me a fat fuck and I proceed to beat him bloody! Except it never happened, I woke up beating my fist bloody onto the tiled floor of the kitchen where I had started to put away my groceries until I jumped into this other reality, I’m just happy the kid wasn’t home because it might have scared her and made her cry and knowing I made her cry hurts the worst, I would have attempted that second suicide earlier. This freaked me out I’ve never had an hallucination like this I was scared, when I told then girlfriend hoping to get support or at least pointed in the direction on where to look she labeled me a schitzophrentic started talking to me as if I was going to flip out and that I was even more dangerous. I let that turn around in my head for years thinking that this was the linchpin to me being broken and with the way she talked to me I believed I didn’t deserve help. This was one of the main reasons I had to kill myself after she took my daughter away.

Like a few million other miserable , confused people out there I didn’t know a blessed thing about what was happening, I remembered the mental abuse and emotional abuse from the church, and some had argued physical and neglectful abuse I recieved at the hands of my family or my mother’s husbands who told my mother to no provide for me but instead buy him a new toy car. My step sister who somehow hates the knot headed reprobate more than I do stole his precious camaro and rear ended a Semi. After learning she was ok I fell on the floor laughing because all I could think about was this NASCAR addicted stunted man child calling his mommy to whine about a broken toy, to add to this mental image he was wearing a blue jean diaper and clutching a plush Richard Petty teddy bear.

There’s more but I don’t feel the need to talk about school bus drivers and me losing memory of one full year of my life, bullying at the hands of adults and children alike. I feel like that would be redundant and unfortunately all too common a story I’ve heard from so many people in my life, friends, lovers , coworkers the fucking homeless people who talk with me after I give them beer money. Leaving some of the genetic issues aside you bastards need to understand how wide spread some of these traumas are for fuck sake my motley of misfits are all walking trauma case studies and instead of getting help YOU people ridiculed them, or gave them the greatest useless sentence in the english language which is :

“Just get over it.”

Do you know what I would like to see? I want to see all of us survivors roaming the streets like that piss poor movie they claimed was a horror movie the Purge and with a list not unlike the list owned by the man that comes around Johnny Cash sang about during his song of the rapture, and I see men, women, and nonbinary people going to the address of those passive aggressive twits and beating them within an inch of their life, then carving into their chest (backwards) “get over it” then we move on to the homes of the rapists and tell them “you asked for this” before destroying their cocks with battery acid. The screams in the night would be glorious with the bats acting like percussion and the screams keyboard swells it would be like Front 242 unplugged. Maybe then the sniveling pretentious nra members out there will learn a bit. At best, it would be fair warning not to be passive aggressive asshole and learn a bit of compassion and mindfulness or to just get their heads out of their ass about battles they know nothing about if they want to avoid severe head trauma that one can not just simply get over.

Living with mental illness is not easy at any level whether a small bit of depression after a breakup or full blown PTSD after a brutal rape that leaves one unable to leave their house. Whomever has these afflictions are the ones suffering and your feelings of inconvenience or fear of those sufferers need to be thrown into the Willamette river, I would say you need to follow suit but there’s enough garbage in this river you can fuck off into a trash compactor.

Living is the hardest thing I do but I keep finding ways to stop the thoughts from taking over and I will and have done whatever it took to not die and sometimes the only way I was able to beat the mental illness was being bat shit insane. Some people think I’m a drug addict, others just think I need to talk to my old invisible friend, a few well meaning souls have suggested psychedelics and these people are pure and I will castrate any who try and stop them from their holy work from the almighty Bob. what I do need is to find that bitch with the **baseball bat and introduce them to a proper bonfire that I’m going to roast one of those little commie Cupidi on, oh yes I want my revenge for St Louis.

*the drugs in question are cannabis for the most part, when I’m spinning hard it helps tune me down and when the depression hits it shuts up the thoughts that plague me. Not a cure all nor is it a replacement for proper medication and therapy. I like to think of it a supplemental medicine that has the added effect of making Tool sound even more epic and letting me sleep peacefully.

** all wildy violent, funny and or cartoonish descriptions written about are there to be funny and entertaining no Cupidi do not exist and the Cat ear person does but the assault was less bloody and didn’t involve a bat but it was far more traumatizing.

#gvaf #bourbonsexual #mental illness #suicide #abuse #Gonzo Journalism

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janepackardmccord · 5 years

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Clara and Ila: A (Very Long, Mostly Natural) New Year’s Eve Twin Birth Story

Every appointment from 35.5 weeks on, my doctor and I discussed the pros and cons of induction. He was pushing from the beginning for induction at least by 38 weeks, and then earlier due to an unconfirmed cholestasis diagnosis, and I was pushing for babies to come on their own.

Fast forward to 39+6, December 30th, the day before my due date. I was dilated to 3 cm and 50% effaced, the doctor did a stretch and sweep, and for many reasons I decided to finally give the thumbs up for induction the following morning. My mom bought a plane ticket and arrived that evening. The plan was for her to stay home for the birth and come to the hospital as soon as the girls were born.

December 31st, 2016, just at 40 weeks, we (my husband Joshua and I) arrived at the hospital early in the morning, checked in, and after a while got settled into our birthing room. We met my main nurse, who had just completed her midwifery education but wasn’t yet licensed. She complimented my copy of Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth (which I inexplicably wanted on the tray by my bed the whole time, as though having the book there was like having a piece of Ina May herself there through my labor). I loved connecting with the nurse-almost-midwife and felt much better knowing that she wasn’t going to push interventions on me as protocol. She hooked me up to the mobile monitors, one for Baby A and one for Baby B. They sort of worked, but kept slipping and beeping when they lost one or the other’s heart rate. After an hour or so I think she gave up on them until I settled down later in the labor.

I really went into this birth guns blazing, set to refuse whatever the staff wanted to do for me beyond clean up the afterbirth. In hindsight, I wish I had spent less time worrying about the interventions they might try to pull behind my back. Some “interventions,” like receiving a few bags of fluid during and after birth, actually turned out to be totally fine and helpful. And the others, like starting Pitocin in the first place, they wouldn’t have done anyway without my consent. My open and fiery resistance turned out to be a pretty negative place to direct all of my birthing energy, energy that I could have focused inward much more constructively.

By 9 am my IV was placed and it was finally time to actually start the dreaded Pitocin, although I didn’t feel anything for a while. After my mom texted Joshua about a dozen times and called twice before the Pit was even started, she finally decided that it was not a good plan for her to stay home, and I was happy to have her come join us. She showed up around 9:30.

My doctor came in about 10 am and I was starting to feel little squeezes. Knowing he would be on the floor that day was one important reason why I okayed induction. He’s the only doctor in the practice who is comfortable with vaginal twin birth, especially if one flips breech. My twins had both been head down(ish) all pregnancy but there’s a risk of Baby B flipping once Baby A is out. I really, really didn’t want to risk a vaginal AND cesarean birth my first go around, so it was a comfort to know that the right man was on the job. Also, general kudos to him for being okay with vaginal twins, vaginal breech, and vaginal twin breech birth. The important detail from the 10 am interaction was that the doctor gave the okay, against hospital protocol, for the nurse to turn off my Pitocin once labor was well under way. I guess they generally keep in on until birth as a rule, but my fighting paid off on this one, and I took some solace in the fact that I wouldn’t need any medicine once my body kicked in. Meanwhile, the nurse kept increasing the Pitocin drip.

At some time during this time frame Baby A’s water broke. I had heard that having your water break feels like peeing your pants, and that turned out to be exactly accurate for me. The fluid started slowly at first and then kept leaking. So. much. amniotic fluid. I couldn’t believe that it was only one baby’s worth. Cue endless towels through the rest of the labor.

At 11 am I still wasn’t really feeling contractions, but I realized that my eggs and toast breakfast was long gone and I was starving. Joshua went and got me a gigantic chipotle turkey sub sandwich stuffed with jalapeños and dripping with spicy mayo (my mouth is watering) and about halfway through scarfing it the contractions picked way up. The nurse, who graciously looked the other way as I insisted on eating (also against the rules), advised that I finish up quickly because it was go-time.

From here on out time got really fuzzy and stretched-out. I tried a few different techniques for dealing with the contractions—and for me, they were contractions, not rushes or surges. They felt tight and crampy and...well, painful. Sorry hypnobirthing community. I bounced on the ball while my mom braided my hair. The IV and monitor lines kept getting tangled in the birthing ball and things were getting intense already. I tried a bunch of positions on the ball. I tried hanging over the back of the bed. I tried my hands and knees. I thought about trying a deep yoga squat but that sounded terrifying.

I asked for the Pitocin to be cut and the nurse complied immediately. This was about 1 pm. Things were already moving enough for me to not feel any relief when the Pitocin stopped and my body took over, but it was interesting to watch the change on the contraction monitor. The line for the Pitocin contractions was super spiky and sharp and irregular, and the line for the natural contractions was one smooth, continuous wave with perfect low valleys and rounded high peaks—often too high to be seen on the graph.

My doctor wandered in around this time and mentioned that I might be in transition. I was still conversing and very conscious and thought that he was probably wrong, which he was. I was only dilated to 6 cm. But he made up for his misreading by suggesting that the nurse put up the “birthing bar” above the bed for me. This was a lifesaver. I finally settled into my laboring position of choice: Joshua pinned behind me on an inclined bed, me between his knees, the birthing bar above me to hang on, my eyes squeezed shut, and my mom on hand to feed me ice chips when I opened my mouth like a baby bird.

At various points residents, nurses, and staff wandered in. Four or so different residents checked me four or so more times, with painstaking progress by a centimeter or so each check. Some man from an anesthesia team came to ask me questions in the event that I opted for an epidural later. I demanded that he go away—that I didn’t want or need him. My mom might have answered his questions at some other point. One nurse or resident came in to do an ultrasound to help with monitor placement. All the while my contractions grew stronger.

During the most intense parts I focused on feeling Joshua behind me and on his voice telling me when each contraction was coming down. I would feel the surge swell and then I would wait for it to peak and gasp “down? down?” and Joshua would tell me “still building” or “not yet” or “it’s just peaking” and then finally “it’s coming down.” My mantra ended up being “down, down, down,” not that fancy yoga mantra I read about on some birth blog. I remember Joshua trying to help me breath through the contractions like we practiced, to which I responded “Don’t breath!” “No moving!” and “Stay still!” It was all I could do to just muster through each peak at the end when they were so fast and so strong and so close together.

When I reached 8 cm or so I wanted to push. I wanted to push so, so badly. My doctor came and told me that I couldn’t push, and that if I did then my cervix might swell and prevent the babies’ smooth entry into the world. I had never heard that before, but it sort of sounded logical, so I tried my very hardest not to push. I pulled up on the bar above me through each contraction and squeezed my legs together, just hanging there squeezing the bar as hard as I could. I thought I was doing a pretty good job at not pushing, but my mom told me later that she was pretty sure my body was pushing anyway the whole time. At any rate, it was sweet and beautiful relief when another resident finally came to check me and (hesitantly) declared me a 10— although apparently I was actually only a 9.5 by the time they had me ready to deliver.

I was still so, so relieved. Finally time to work with those pushes! Joshua moved the bar from above me and tried to take the chance to go to the bathroom, but I ordered him back to me and suddenly there were a lot of nurses around helping me transfer to a gurney. All twins are delivered in the operating room as a precaution, something I found out early in the pregnancy and couldn’t argue out of. At first I could see no way how I was ever going to move, but there were a bunch of nurses and I somehow managed to get on my hands and knees on the gurney and stayed that way, yelling at the top of my lungs with relief and effort, while they wheeled me across the entire Labor and Delivery floor to the OR. I had been feeling nauseated and thought I would throw up on the ride over, but luckily that beautiful chipotle sandwich stayed down. My mom decided during the transfer that she had reached her limit and stayed behind in the L&D room, and Joshua reappeared at my side when I was finally in the operating room.

The OR was cool and that felt good, so I tore off my hospital gown and climbed onto the extremely narrow operating table, planning to stay on my hands and knees. The room started to fill with people—so many people. It sort of felt like the biggest crowd gathered outside of Times Square that night, but it was actually around 15 or 20 people: doctors, residents, lots of nurses, a woman from part of an anesthesia team who introduced herself kindly before I gasped out “I don’t need you,” etc. etc. One of these people, or maybe several, told me that I couldn’t stay on my hands and knees on the operating table because it “wasn’t safe,” which I protested extensively. Later, I was actually very glad to be on my back in stirrups because I could see what was going on and because the table was so narrow and because I didn’t have to move or reposition in between or after delivery. Once I cooperated onto my back, they comically tried to shove this foam wedge behind me for support, but it kept slipping the whole time I was on the table. Joshua had to keep helping a small-ish nurse shove it back into place and I had to keep using people’s hands to lift myself up and see what was going on.

After I was all positioned, everything went fast. A couple of the nurses coached me to direct my yelling and energy down into the push while they counted me through three pushes at a time. I had been wary of coached pushing because of what I had read and heard, but in my case it was very helpful—I felt like my team’s expectation of three long pushes at a time made me keep push longer and harder than I would have on my own. After about 10 minutes of pushing they told me Baby A’s head was crowning and I reached down to feel a fuzzy little head on the cusp of coming into the world. Joshua, now in full OR gear from hat to booties, locked my eyes, leaned down, and kissed me through his mask. The head and the kiss were enough motivation to get me through a couple more huge pushes, and then the head was out, and then out came our sweet Baby A at 6:37 pm. I was under the impression that they would let Joshua hold her immediately, but after he cut the cord they whisked her off to the other side of the OR for an exam. That was super distracting for me—I still had another baby to push out and I couldn’t focus until the first one was safe in Joshua’s arms next to me. In the interim I did a lot of yelling and demanding, which everyone must have learned to tune out by that point because they weren’t paying much attention to my insistence that Joshua hold our baby and they kept telling me that of course he couldn’t do skin to skin, this was the OR. Whatever.

Some in the general crowd asked what her name was, and Joshua said “Ila!” at the same time that I said “Clara!” There were speculations under the OR lights of red hair, so I think we decided that Baby A could be Clara if Baby B also showed signs of being a redhead... the name Ila comes from Joshua’s side of the family, where the strongest redhead genes also originate, and Clara comes from my side of the family. After all of that, once Baby A was safely wrapped in Joshua’s arms, I could focus on getting the next baby out—something I think the doctor and resident delivering had been trying to get me to do for a while because it was all very urgent all of a sudden. They told me after some more pushing that Baby B was stuck behind a lip of swollen cervix and that they were going to have to use a vacuum to extract her.

I wonder if my doctor—knowing me—knew that threatening me with a vacuum extraction was exactly the right thing to say to me to get me to push, or whether he actually intended to use the vacuum in short order, because there was no way I was going to get that far with a natural delivery only to accept such a drastic intervention at the very end. Luckily my cervix was on my side and after a couple more pushes-to-end-all-pushes, Baby B slid out into the world and up onto my chest. It was 6:59 pm. I kept gasping “Baby! Baby!” like I hadn’t expected that result and I got to cuddle my girl skin to skin. Baby B’s hair looked even more reddish than the first one’s, so we decided that Baby A was Clara (7 lb 14 oz) and Baby B was Ila (7 lb 12 oz).

I stared in awe at the baby in my arms and the baby in Joshua’s arms as people pushed on my uterus and tried to get me to deliver the placentas. I pushed a few more times and got that over with. I asked the doctor to show me the placentas as he walked by me. He held his white plastic tub over to me and I peeked inside at the mass of gore. It was less idyllic than the placenta prints I had seen on Instagram so I just let them toss them.

Just as I expected to be done they started giving me bee-sting numbing shots to prep me for stitches. I had small twin tears that just needed a couple stitches apiece and the numbing shots hurt worse than anything. They kept trying to stitch and I kept yelling “I’m not numb there!” and then I would feel another shot. At some point during the aftermath I had an angel nurse by my side, opposite Joshua. She kept saying my name and telling me what to do and what was going on. She helped me get Baby B latched and we nursed a little as the doctor and resident finished up whatever they were doing down there. Then the babies went in little isolettes and a bunch of people helped me transfer back to a gurney (bless them) and a troop of people wheeled us all back to recovery.

In retrospect, although I knew the birth I wanted, fought for it, and generally got what I wanted, I look at things on this side of childbirth with a lot more compassion than I did before. I used to judge a little when I read on Birth Without Fear about “variations of normal” and how C-sections were a-okay. But now I can honestly say that no matter how a mama births or how her birth turned out, she has my respect. You got an epidural? I don’t blame you. Birth hurts! You had a miracle, painless, hypno-homebirth? Major kudos. Your babe was breech and you had a cesarean? That must have been super hard too. Motherhood in general is teaching me how to withhold judgment and show compassion—to others, to my babies, and to myself—in a thousand and one tough, beautiful ways, and I have a feeling that my lessons are just beginning.

#twinbirth birthstory

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ladyvivienneloyola · 6 years

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Challenge #6

Alternately Titled: Last Night

((a/n: hello hello hello, hopefully I’m not late to the party right now. LOL. Anywhos, I had a jampacked few days lately and well I just managed to finish this now. My arms feel like jelly from all this typing but anyway, hopefully you guys would like this. As always I’d like to thank the wonderful people who RPed with me for this challenge @opheliagardinier and @benjaminschreave and also YALL there’s supposed to be another fic in between my challenges but again, I was just kinda too busy with personal stuff to write both things on time. The fic shall come soon I hope. also shout out to everyone for writing bomb ass fics!!! THEY WERE SO GOOD AND IT MADE ME NERVOUS WITH MINE LOOOOOOL. Anyway that’s it for now. Hope you guys like it and again a warning for swearing cause lol, what would you expect from Viv?))

Confession time and here’s what I got, I was really getting tired from all this standing during this ball. Guess you could say that I couldn’t really stand here anymore. There were a few tables and all but most of the ballroom was basically full of those cocktail tables that left most of us standing. Thankfully the ball was soon dying down, or at least I think it was going to after the toast the king and queen were about to give so I was willing to stay a little longer before crashing in my room and giving my feet sweet relief from the shoes I was wearing.

I was pretty stuffed after eating some cake with Fee, but somehow I guessed that I still had a little room for drinks when she handed me the flute of champagne from a passing waiter.

“More alcohol, excellent.” she smiles as I accept the glass and press it to my lips as I return her amusement.

“You know I’m starting to like balls even more now.”

Fee somehow snorts at the comment, and I choose not to react to the probably poor taste in words for the sake that I was not too excited to really start an argument.

“You and me both, Viv.” I watch as she takes a sip from her glass, and knowing that she was the alcohol expert between us, her comment and the way she held the glass close to her was interesting to say the least. “Hm, interesting choice.”

I follow suit, taking a sip from the champagne to see why Fee would react in such a way to the drink, noting the bitter after taste that the champagne leaves on my tongue. “Why?”

“Tastes like the regular shit rich people drink at these kinds of stuff.” From everything I’ve ever tasted here in this palace, most of the drinks I’ve tasted have always left a similar aftertaste, most alcohol tasted like shit anyway.

The wine connoisseur leans a little towards me and says with a shrug, “Honestly, I would have expected something a bit better.”

“Right.” I take another sip and feel my stomach do a flip, and I’m not talking the good kind when you see your crush with a new hair cut. It must be because the champagne was a more concentrated unit of alcohol but I wanted some confirmation from the expert herself. “Say, would you think this drink has a pretty high alcohol concentration?”

She shakes her head in reply, “No, maybe 12%.”. Fee glances over to me as she adds, “Hey are you okay?”

That’s when the screams start. I couldn’t tell much since it was as if there was a sudden block on my senses. The nausea hits me again and I place my hand on Fee’s shoulder to try and steady myself.

I glance over to Fee looking around in confusion and can only watch as she throws her glass of champagne at someone with a gun. Holy fucking shit, wasn’t that a waiter? I only watch as the glass crashes against him, spilling champagne of him as it was soon followed by the sound of a gun discharging.

I instinctively yell over the gunfire. “What did you do that for?” Oh god, what even gave Fee the idea that a fucking champagne glass was going to stop a gun. Who the fuck did she think she was? Chuck Norris in a fucking ball gown? Amidst the adrenaline that was starting to seep into my system, I keel over again.

All I wanted to do was close my eyes and cover my ears, not even sure what had happened with the glass I was drinking. I’m pretty sure it was lost among the sound of the dozen other things crashing to the ground and the smell of gun fire around us. I wanted to curl up and get away from this place, but I keel over again as the sensation of my stomach doing one of those weird flips does it again, and suddenly my chest was getting heavy. I couldn’t breathe, this all felt so wrong. The sound everytime a gun discharged made me jump, at the expense of feeling my limbs get heavier and heavier. Maybe if I just closed my eyes I’ll be fine. This just could be my reaction to all of this. I needed to get a grip of myself.

I feel Fee lean in close to me, her weight only making my bones feel even more like lead than ever. She coughs and I open my eyes and look up and see the red blooming out of Fee’s chest. This was a gunshot wound. Oh fucking hell, I knew this bitch was going to end up getting shot. I scramble for an answer in my mind, to try and remember what first aid measures that were possible if one had gotten shot.

I’m trying to think, I’m thinking, I’m thinking and thinking. But my mind was becoming duller and duller. What I do remember though that the leading cause of death after gun shot wounds is blood lost and I do my best to try and stop the blood flowing out of her shoulder. I use most of my strength to move my hand and press it against the wound. There could be better things to stop it. A cloth, a dress. Thinking. I must think. I must breathe, but I can’t breathe. I could- the nausea hits me again.

“Don’t freak out but we need to get out of here and get you some-” I let out another labored breath before I suddenly feel my legs give out from under me, and try to catch myself before falling fully to the ground. I was not feeling so good, I didn’t want to let whatever was overtaking my bodily functions overpower me. An emergency. This was my emergency. I couldn’t. I can’t. There were probably more people like Fee who needed the medical attention. “Go… find… help…” I manage out as I try to collect myself but the waves hit me more and more and I can’t seem to find anymore strength to hold myself up. Everything hurt, my mind was a blur, and I couldn’t breathe. It feels like I was dying and I might as well have been.

From the corner of my eye, I see Fee in a fruitless effort kneeling down next to me before she falls forward and lets out a cry of pain.

Inutil. I am nothing but useless now. This was not happening, but it is. I don’t know what feels worse now. This

feeling of everything hurting all at once now. I gasp and clutch my chest as I spare everything going around me one last look. Fee’s bloody shoulder, the glass and the other people on the ground. The screaming, the guns, and the royal family nowhere in my line of sight.

This was it. This madness could be the last thing I see. It is a disappointment.

I can only feel the last wave of nausea before I let myself fall,

and fall,

and fall.

I kept on falling. A part of me knew that I wasn’t dead, because if I was I’d probably be seeing a white light or feeling the flames lick my feet in hell. (I mean, it was only a matter of time until I did get there.) In fact, I only felt this heavy emptiness in my chest that seemed to contrast the oddly weightless feeling of all this. Everything was dark around me as I continued to fall. There were voices I could make out, or at least those were real voices and not ones in my head- but their words were all jumbled and I was left disoriented as ever. I wait for this all to soon end- and I hope to hit the bottom soon. If there was a bottom.

It was hours of falling until I feel impact of hitting the ground and I seem to open my eyes and gasp. It was bright, so bright but all I couldn’t make out anything else other than the light. Two thoughts immediately come into mind. Oh god, was I really dead- and holy shit, did I actually make it to heaven?

I blink once, blink twice, blink thrice and my vision seems to get a grip of itself. The smell of this place is familiar, and I think to myself… heaven definitely shouldn’t smell like antiseptic. I close my eyes again, try to steady my breath despite feeling like mercury filled my lungs. I bring my hands in front of me and I feel my right hand heavier as I feel like it’s tugging something. An IV.

There was an IV in my hand and I follow the line to see a bag of dextrose hanging over my head. Holy shit, I wasn’t dead. I try to look around again with my eyes finally adjusted to the light, I realize where I am. Of course I’d know what this is, I’ve been in one so many times before. I choke back the feeling that made me sick to my stomach. It was a hospital room. Fuck this shit, I was in a hospital room- and I have no idea why. I push myself up from my bed a I try to find the button that could call a nurse on duty as I try to put together pieces of my memory back together.

The smell of gunfire, the sickly sticky feeling of blood on my palm, the shattering of glass, a bitter taste on my tongue.

I try to remember, but everything I see comes only in bits- and it only takes bits for me to feel a sense of dread that makes me want to scream. As if the universe didn’t want to hear me freak out, a nurse comes in and rushes to me. Immediately, she places her hands on my shoulders to calm me down before I can do anything. Her tone is calm, her eyes are tired- I can tell she’s had a rough time lately. I try to process her words as she sets me back down on my bed as if she’s said her speech a dozen times already- maybe she has. She tells me everything I needed to know, and I hang on to every key detail I needed to know.

Last Night. Attack during the ball. Guns turned on the guest. More than a dozen people dead. None of the Selected died. Poison in the drinks. The drinks. Poison. The thought makes me feel sick to my stomach again.

“We found you in time to pump your stomach and administer the antidote before the poison worked its full effect.”

Her voice sounds cautious as she tells me that. I didn’t even ask what the poison’s full effect was. The look on her face said it all.

The explanation doesn’t make me feel anymore comfortable, but it has helped calm my nerves down enough for the nurse to trust me to be alone before she shortly leaves my room and comes back with a tray of food before a pager seems to beep from her pocket. Just as quickly as she explained everything to me and brought me my food, she seems to rush out before she mentions that the prince had visited me earlier while I was asleep. One weight seems to lift off my chest at that news. At least Ben was okay, at least I know he had managed to become 21 years and 1 day old.

One small relief. Another 99 more worries to tackle later. Another problem has to do with the rumbling of my stomach and I uncover my food to find a bowl of porridge.

I sigh. What was I expecting? You don’t exactly serve someone who just got poisoned and got their stomach pumped a michelin-star worthy dish. I pick up my spoon, contented with what was in front of me and try to get some food in me.

Eating was going to be harder than I thought. At the first spoonful of porridge, my mind seems to play a trick on me and imagine the same bitter taste of the champagne I had drank last night.

The thought makes me want to vomit again as I pick up the cover of the tray and end up spitting out the porridge and feel the non-existent food in my stomach try to climb up my throat again. I shut my eyes and start to feel myself tear up as a similar nauseous feeling returns.

I take a few breaths and try to calm myself down. The food’s not poisoned. There is no poison in this food. You will not black out again.

This happens several times over and over again, all with the same results. At the taste of food, the bitter taste on my tongue returns. I spit it out, and the nauseous pit in my stomach grows even more dizzying. Come on. Food. It’s just food.

It happens even more, with more attempts to tell myself that I could do it- but I can’t seem to convince myself that the porridge has the same bitter taste as the champagne does. My body seems convinced that it wants to reject whatever food I try to take in. I wanted to cry. I hated this, I’ve never felt any hungrier, I’ve never felt anymore pitiful than this moment, but I was tired too. I push the tray and table away from me as I settle with grabbing the glass of water set beside my table.

The first sip was just as bad as the first spoonful of porridge, but after feeling so nauseous these past few minutes- I’ve seemed to at least gotten used to it and managed to drink a glass. Hopefully a glass would get me by as I allowed myself to lay back down and close my eyes. Sleep could distract me from how hungry and nauseous I felt at the same time.

I should have stayed awake instead.

Unlike the last time I was unconscious, my new knowledge of the attack seems to only create a nightmarish version of the events that had happened last night, or rather my own last night.

Everything is the same at first, I’m in the same red dress, I’m with the same people- I bring Ben his surprise happy meal. But when everyone is preparing for the toast, the madness I remember so easily returns. It begins with a glass crashing to the ground as a bullet flies to the king on stage, the monarch instantly falling down before everyone starts to panic as bodies drop one by one. In this version, I only feel worse with the knowledge of my ingestion of poison but instead of collapsing- I am frozen instead. My muscles tense all at once as I watch everyone around me either collapse from the poisoned drinks or fall victim to the flurry of bullets flying from the guns of people that looked like the waiter last night. I see everyone I knew from the palace run in terror, pushing past each other in their panic.

While I’m still standing beside Fee as I watch her shoulder get shot and see her fall to ground with no one to support her. She calls out my name to help her, but I was powerless, my muscles frozen as I watched in my own terror more injuries. I wanted to grab her and drag her out of here, or at least use anything to stop the bleeding. I take my eyes away from her, not willing to see someone I personally knew bleed out. The poison doesn’t seem to take away my voice, and my voice joins the many yelling for help. There’s yelling, so much yelling that it makes my head hurt as I try to search through my meager line of sight. I look for Ben, and for a second, I can imagine hearing his voice, his usually calm voice yell out something before he seems to be cut off.

I can’t even turn around to see what happens to him before I feel the sharpest of pain in my abdomen, and my body feels heavier on one shoulder- as if a weight was on it and I’m suddenly falling again, only this time I quickly hit the ground.

For the second time, I gasp awake with my throat dry at what I had just saw. I try to tell myself that I was fine, the things I saw in that dream weren’t real- but the world feels topsy turvy and the room suddenly smells like roses. I blink a few times to make sure I was out of that dream- only to feel a hand on my shoulder and look up to see Ben standing by my bedside- his features a little blurry in my vision as I try to greet him.

“Hey Ben.” I lift one hand up to place my hand over his. Yeap, he was real.

He seems to greet me with a frown as takes a seat on the edge of my bed. “Hey. Bad dreams?”

I try to push myself up from my bed to sit up. Bad dream was an understatement, I thought as I push some hair out of my face- feeling that I had broken a cold sweat while dreaming. I try to shake the unease off. It was just a dream.

“No, I was just… resting my eyes.” I try to be as funny as I tried to make myself be, maybe it would help convince me that everything was alright again.

“Apparently, whatever they're giving me includes a pretty heavy sedative.” I add as I lift up my hand with the IV on it and blink again- my vision finally clearing up for me to really see Ben’s face and I feel something in my chest drop at the sight of a huge bruise on his cheek, and I reach over to tilt his chin to see a few more blooming on his jaw and smaller ones on his face. My brows furrow, “What happened to you?”

“I got bruised.” He attempts to add a teasing tone to his voice and smile, but all I could catch was how dead tired he was.

“Yes Ben, I can obviously see the bruising.” I avoid making a poorly thought out bruised Benana joke as I push his face away and roll my eyes at him trying to be cheeky at a time like this. “I didn’t see what had happened to you last night. Are you okay?”

Ben nods once with a simple, “Better shape than you all.” before he presses his lips together and he seems to give me a closer look. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

“Don't give it too much thought.” I try to shrug it off. Everything heals eventually. Heart attacks, kidney failures, even poison. Despite how heavy my body feels, I try to push myself to act less weak than I felt. Perhaps that would convince me that I was better and not poisoned. I am healthy. I am healthy. Mhmmm, yes, that’s the spirit. “Probably is the most action I’ll ever see happening during a ball.”

I’m so good at being positive. Wow. I’m positive that was the worst comeback ever. The guy’s birthday was ruined by a goddamn attack and people died- and you’re here mentally complaining about being slipped poison into your champagne. Stop making this about yourself, for christ’s sake.

“Sorry to hear that this happened to you.” I sigh at the thought, as I try to sympathize with what he could have possibly experienced. I wish those bruises on his face could tell me the story of what happened to him.

Ben sighs too, “You shouldn’t... What happened to isn’t minor. Not that I want to see you upset, but it’s okay to admit you are. Especially to me.”

I blink as I try to mull over his words. They were the words I wanted to tell him too. “What about you?” Sitting up was tiring as ever so I leaned back against my bed, but manage to find his hand as I continue. “If I tell you how I really feel, will you stop putting on this put together shtick and tell me how you really feel?”

He seems to pause before he starts to nod slowly.

“An eye for an eye.” a small tired chuckle escapes him, and I’d frown too if his laughter weren’t that infectious.

A chuckle escapes me too at his humor before I try to sober my expression and ready myself to tell him how I felt.

“I've never felt worst in my life.” I curl my lips in before continuing that thought. Sharing your feelings sucked. “I don't like being on this side of the hospital bed, Ben, and I hate how I wasn't able to help out when there was an opportunity for me to help out during an emergency.” I huff out a breath, feeling most of the things I worried about earlier come crashing down on me.

There’s a moment of silence as I watch him, his eyes somehow analyzing what I had said. Then I feel his hand take my own and squeezing it once he says with a hesitant expression, “Can I help you move side?”

I can’t help but let out a small laugh at his offer, shaking my head as I try to explain what I truly meant by that.

“I meant I don't like being the person in the hospital bed. I was typically the one sitting on the bedside waiting for my dad to get better.” It wasn’t too long ago I was sitting on the edge of my father’s bed as I tried to nurse him back to health after his last accident. The memory pulls the corners of my mouth down before I add, “ I always made sure I was in tip top shape and avoid being in this particular position.”

It was true. I have never been admitted to the hospital in my life. There goes my perfect health record.

“This particular time couldn’t be helped, though. Don’t... don’t feel bad for something that was out of your control.”

It’s my turn to consider his advice. “I'm trying not to. The keyword is trying.” I pout at the thought as I swipe my thumb over the back of his hand, and allowing myself to glance at our hands momentarily. I knew how I felt, or at least I guessed I did- but Ben as always was this little mystery I try to figure out everytime something happens to him. All I know is that at a time like this, it was best to just try to comfort a person. That what I needed on the early days after the accident.

“Neither should you. On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your stress levels at the moment?”

“12.” Ben answers without even taking a second to think about it before it left his mouth, but now he winces as he adds. “That sounds bad.”

My eyebrows shoot up at the lack of hesitation with his answer, but I shake my head at the out of scale number.

“Bad, but definitely understandable. You of all people would be pretty stressed about what happened.”

He runs his hand over his face as sighs again with a nod. “More than you know.”

“Do you want me to know? Or are you going to just try and bear it all without telling people about it?” I ask him, though I’m more than curious of what was going on in his head. A part of me needed to know more about Ben, somehow to connect to him and make sure that I wasn’t the only one who experienced problems.

“You sure you want to be burdened with my many problems?” He makes an attempt to smile at me again, and I lean forward closer to him and shrug my shoulders.

“I’ve got tons of them, what’s a few more?” I smirk back at him.

He seems to take my smirk as a go signal as he start to explain things.

“I guess... I don’t know where to start. Making sure you’re all okay, dealing with this politically, publically, figuring who exactly did this and why, the future of the Selection.” The thought of the future of this Selection makes my throat even drier than it is- but I let the thought go as I watch his shoulder slump a little but a corner of his mouth tilt up. “Apparently, I do know where to start. And the list only goes on.”

I reach over to put my hand on his shoulder, “See? Was that so hard?” I shake my head a little as I continued. “It's good that it seems you've got your priorities straight but I think you're missing something.”

“I just-well I don’t want any of you worrying about what you don’t have to. Not after all this.” He explains and briefly pauses before he tilts his head. “Missing what?”

“You know fully well that us, girls especially, worry about everything.” I joke with a smirk before I answer his question. “And what you're missing is one really important detail: Checking if you are okay.” I poke his chest with my free hand. “When was the last time you gave yourself a break?”

“Uh, Gabby made me take a nap this afternoon if that counts. Still need to check on a couple more girls before I head to an actual bed.” He retaliates by poking my arm back as I bobble my head in consideration with the nap.

“Okay the nap counts, but be careful- your eye bags are looking pretty heavy right now.” I reach over to swipe my thumb under his eye for the effect. “Looks like you’re in need of some beauty sleep, stud.”

“My studness lacking today?”

“A lot, but maybe it’s because you’re older now.” I snort out a small laugh. “Poor you not aging gracefully. The potency of your studness wearing off.”

He scoffs a laugh, “And the only way to regain it is with beauty sleep right? Return to my youthful radiance?”

“Mhmmm, that seems to be the only cure for the way you're aging. Oh wait,” I point to his hair jokingly, “Is that a gray hair I spot?”

His eyes narrow, his eyes playfully glaring at me. “A trick of the light. My hair is thick, and brown, and grayless.”

“Are you sure?” I lift an eyebrow in return as I reach over to run a hand through his hair and immediately find a silver strand in his hair. “AHA! I found a gray strand.” I smirk at him. “So much for your thick, brown, and grayless hair, stud.”

He maintains his glare, “Liar liar pants on fire.”

“Don’t believe me? Fine.” I reach over again to pluck the gray strand I had seen earlier, a small ow coming from Ben before I show it to him. “Proof of my utmost honesty, your highness.”

Ben blinks at the strand I hold before him a few times before his eyes widen, “Oh my God.”

A loud laugh escapes me, “I’m not a liar, Ben. I’m a complete…” Shit. What’s the opposite of liar? “truther.”

Fuck that was not a real word.

He laughs loudly at my use of such an amazing word. “I’m in the presence of a true scholar.”

I scrunch up my nose as the words leave my mouth without a second thought, “I feel like whatever was in that drink has decreased my brain function a little.”

I had the poor taste to even laugh at that joke before Ben’s face falls flat.

“That’s not funny.” He admonishes me and I feel my stomach twist at that look on his face and a twinge of guilt at the stupid joke. It wasn’t really a good time to joke about getting poisoned, Viv.

“I know.” I sigh, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

I see him stare at me a little before his face goes into a grimace. “That… came out harsher than I meant. I’m sorry.” he says before he reaches for my hand again and squeezes it lightly. Leave it to him to apologize for berating me when I did something wrong.

I squeeze his hand back as I shake my head. Not the best joke, and this time I understood his point.

“No, I understand. I have to watch what comes out of my mouth now,” I click my tongue, “be a little more sensitive.”

Ben bobbles his head, “Usually yes. Especially now, and probably indefinitely.”

“Right, I'll be sure to put a filter on it.” I sigh again at the thought of having to really put a filter on my words, politeness was never my forte. “That’s gonna be a walk in the park.”

“Considering it’s been part of your lessons, it should technically be easy.” He manages out an amused smile.

“Easy. Sure, avoiding making side comments during lessons sure is easy.” I add a little sarcasm before I snort out a small laugh. “How does one avoid using sarcasm when they were born to be sarcastic?”

Suddenly, I feel Ben put both of his hands on the sides of my face, turning it to his direction and brings it close to his as he gives me this intensely serious look. “No Idea, But I believe in you.”

The lilt in his voice seems to betray his serious portrayal, making me realize he was only joking- but I wish you could tell my heart that. I suddenly feel my face flush at the sudden closeness between our faces- and my embarrassment only worsens when the heart monitor connected to me seems to be beeping uncontrollably as I try to manage a few words out.

“I’m trying okay?” I lean my forehead against his and move my free hand to rest it on the back of his neck. “Turns out that being nice to people isn’t that bad at all.”

Surprise, I’m not as bad a bitch as I thought I was.

Ben raises both his eyebrows, “Are you saying you’ve been nice to me? Because I don’t really remember that.”

“Then it seems like your memory is also getting affected by your aging, old man.” I joke.

“Or you never actually said it. My memory is superb.” he argues back.

I lean back and scrunch up my nose at him. “I think I’ve been nothing but the nicest person to you.” I chuckle at the thought.

Aside from my initial thoughts and expression to him at the beginning of this Selection- I think was a pretty decent human being towards him.

“Besides the happy meal and intelligence comment I can’t say you have.” he smirks at me knowingly and I glance to the side guiltily, because yeah… maybe those were the only stand out moments of my kindness but he should know all the things I held back from saying. That’s part of being nice, right?

“What? Would you want me to completely lose my prickliness? I thought you liked that characteristic.”

“Oh I do, believe me. But it’s also nice to hear how much you like my hair every once in a while.” He grins at me and I roll my eyes before indulging him with a smile and reach over to run my hand through his luscious locks.

“I think you have the loveliest almost-grayless chocolate brown hair.” I say before I give him a flat look, hoping he’s satisfied by the compliment.

An eye-crinkling smile appears on his face, “Aw, you think so? How nice of you to say so out of the blue.”

“You know what us nice people do, we just love to compliment people spontaneously.” I say non-chalantly before I smirk. “Particularly for studs like you.”

“Mmm, what else you got?”

I scoff at him trying to push me even more, but it only fuels me to use my most patronizing tone.

“You put the sun to shame whenever you smile, and” I pause before dramatically speaking as I glide my hand up his jaw, “Oh-my-god, This could just cut.”

I notice his smile, it was softer than usual as he replies, “So I’ve been told. That and my cheekbones.”

“Hmmm,” I reach up to poke his cheekbones and I jokingly flinch at little. “Ow! It’s most definitely sharp.” I grin one last time before I pull my hand away from him , musing at the one thing I realized I liked about him.

“I like your hands.” I blurt out and that sounded way too sincere to sound like my last few jokes, but I roll my eyes and throw whatever sense of dignity I had as I continued my thought. “They’re always warm when I hold them.”

His hands immediately take both of mine, his thumbs brushing across the back of them. “I run very hot, I’m a walking furnace.”

I resist the urge to snort before I look down at both of our hands, I was right- he had warm hands. “Mhmmm, because you’re just so hot.” I look back up at him with a smirk, picking up where I left off with my jokes. “The hottest prince around.”

Well, unless you count Prince Zuko from Avatar, but he wasn’t real.

Ben lets out a short laugh, “You flirt like you were born to do it.”

“Oh you know it's part of my charms- definitely a full proof tactic in winning you over.” I tilt my head a little with a smirk.

“And you’re so sure winning me over is working out?” He asks, and something hits me again.

It’s that small pang of jealousy and insecurity you feel whenever you’re being compared to another person, only this time, it was me comparing myself again to all the other girls who remained in the Selection.

“I can only really do so much.” I lift a shoulder, “You tell me.” I briefly answer before letting out a laugh. For now, I wasn’t quite sure I could compare to the remaining girls.

He smiles at me as his hands squeeze mine again, “I’d say so.”

I return his smile as I brush my thumb on the back of one of his hands, “Keep doing what I’m doing then?”

“Times ten. Plus the compliments.” He gives me a cheeky grin. “Please.”

I bobble my head as I go along and mimic his cheeky tone, “If you insist, stud. Flirting, unli-compliments, trying to be nice... all of those are duly noted.”

“I’ll be sure to remind you in case you forget.” He says before he leans in and quickly gives me a kiss, a smile forming on my lips as I instinctively put a hand on the side of his face before I lean back.

“Busy day today?”

“Enormously. I don’t see it becoming less busy any time soon either.” A small sigh escapes him, and I start to feel his own tiredness. I feel a frown curl on my lips before I find his hand and give it a squeeze.

“A wise old man once said this to me ... five minutes ago... “ I pause before I echo his words back to him, only this time in a more sincere way. “But I believe in you, you can get through all of this.”

A soft smile appears on his face. “Let’s hope its that easy, Sparrow.”

“Come on, you can be a little more positive than that.” I tilt my head and give him an encouraging soft smile. I’ve never heard him be like that before.

He shrugs, “I can. But for a moment it’s easier to be realistic than positive.”

My brows knit together at his shrug, and it’s odd to see him sound this way before. I know the past few days have been rough for him, but I didn’t want his spirit to break any time soon. Having gone through day like his before, I somehow muster up the words I wish someone told me years ago.

“Life is tough, I think the two of us are very familiar with that fact.” I then bring my hands to hold both sides of his face as I look at him intensely, trying to convey every word sincerely “You're tougher, though. This, like every struggle, will pass.”

Life is tough, but I’m tougher. Life is harsh, but I can be harsher. I wish I didn’t have to learn those things the hard way.

Ben only stares at me for a moment, his brows knitted before he nods slightly and quietly thanks me- his eyes not leaving mine just yet. I can only hold his gaze as we let the quiet sink in between us. I meant every word I said- and maybe I said those words out loud just to remind myself of that too.

I brush his cheek a little before I make a small remark.

“How’s that for a compliment huh?” I crack a small smile before I lean in and bring his face close to mine, kissing him softly. I felt like I needed this, this kind of contact with him right now and I’m pretty sure a bunch of other girls have attempted, have, or will kiss him today- honestly that’s their business, but for now, Ben was with me and goddamnit I wanted to kiss him. I had no idea why, or I’d rather not admit the reason why just yet. I can feel him smile as he kisses me back, his hand putting itself lightly on my waist as he leans closer to me, and a part of me hopes that he’s kissing me too for the exact same reason why I wanted to. I liked Ben. What a surprise, right?

I loosen my hold on his face and leave a hand to rest on his cheek before I moved the other to rest on his chest, maneuvering myself closer to him as I kissed him a little longer. I just had that one feeling in my chest that only got warmer when I did, and it felt like his hand holding mine- but better, somehow so much better. Even if I was in the hospital with an IV in one of my hands and I was in a gross hospital gown, this was better. The kiss stays this way a little longer, and I wish it did last longer when he leans back to rest his forehead against mine. I lean my forehead against his, keeping my eyes briefly closed as I calm the small lump I feel in my throat before opening them to look at him.

“Make sure that you’re okay too, Ben.”

He presses his lips together before he nods, “Alright.” he gives me a smile, and I try to be reassured that he would take care of himself.

I pull away from him slightly and give him a quick kiss on his cheek, careful to avoid his bruise. “You may want to do some warm compress if you want this,” I lightly tap the bruise on his cheek as I smile back at him, “to disappear soon.”

“Eh,” he leans back and stands from my bed. “Makes me look tough.” he says with a grin.

I can only smirk up at him before I lean back on my bed. “You’re already tough, I think I’ve made that very clear.”

Ben snickers before remarking, “Then the look stays.” I roll my eyes a little before he leans down and I feel him kiss the top of my head. “Sleep well.”

I turn to my side but continue to look up at him, “And you should take care of yourself. Don't make me get out of this bed just to hunt you down and make sure you've eaten.”

Wow, yeah Viv- you could definitely hunt people down for not eating. You’re totally not a hypocrite~

The corner of his mouth turns up as I watch him start walking to the door, “I’ll even set alarms just to indulge you.”

“How sweet of you, Ben.” I laugh, “I’ll see you later?”

He nods at me with a grin over his shoulder as he opens the door to my room. “Be on the look out for a slightly less tough prince.”

Again, my mouth runs faster than my brain.

“Oh, so I’m gonna be seeing Wyatt around then?” I lift an eyebrow as I grin back teasingly at him, hoping he doesn’t take any offense that I maaaay have slightly insulted his brother.

“Kidding, I don't actually know your brother.” I try to save myself before snorting out a laugh. “Bye Ben.”

Ben seems to get my humor as a loud short laugh escapes him. “I’m telling him you said that.”

And like that he gives me one last grin before disappearing behind the closed door of my room and I close my eyes, momentarily forgetting everything just for a while. All of that talking and interacting with Ben was more tiring than I thought. It was worth it though, but there were things that still unsettled me from last night. I still felt as useless as the moments I was keeling over with nausea in the ballroom. I suppose there were some things I’d have to do to make up for it.

#vivienne loyola #viv fics #selection oc #selectionoc #challenge #ben tag #fee tag

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education-tips · 7 years

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Tips for Seniors/Juniors in High School (Plan on Going to College) College Admissions Advice #1

So when I was a Junior/Senior i remember freaking out about what college I wanted to go to and what I wanted to be and whatever

NOW I know I want to be an educator and help teens through this time because I remember how stressful this process was.

So here’s a 10 Tip thread I made for Jr/Seniors in HS who plan on applying to college

Look first of all, let me just say a disclaimer: I am not a college admissions person, this was just my experience with the California’s college application system.

So in my experience: I had the luxury of applying to 10 colleges (8 pub, 2 Priv) all in California #blessfeewaivers

The schools I applied to all ranged from prestigious to average but most of them happened to be my safety schools.

I wanted to point this out bc that was one of the things you SHOULDN’T DO when applying to college.

Don’t doubt yourself

When applying to college, many people get too caught up on rankings and whether they can get in the college or not.

And I was the same way. I even made a list

p>When I was applying to college the main factors I looked for in a school were:

Prestige

Size of school

Weather

WOKE OR NOT

Difficulty to get in

How far was it from home

Etc

So make a list of what you want in a college. Especially if you want to dorm. You know what you want whether it be a school by the beach, or a school in a large city etc

Colleges won’t fit everything on your list, but if they do, congratulations you have found your dream school.

Apply to dream schools even if your dream school is insane to get into or it’s far away or whatever, apply to it!!

DREAM SCHOOLS DO NOT HAVE TO BE THE BEST SCHOOLS, THEY ARE NOT SYNONYMOUS ALTHOUGH THEY SOMETIMES CAN BE

Your dream school is the place you feel like you’d flourish AND fits the criteria you have set for yourself

Nobody should ever make you feel ashamed of your dream school because in the end if you get in you’ll be happy

Also, apply to places even if you doubt you’ll get in. They may not be your dream school but they might turn out to be.

You’ll have a better chance of getting in if you apply compared to the literal 0 chance you’ll have if you don’t apply.

Just have the guts to apply to your “dream school” or a school you really like aight.

But also realize that if you’re applying to less that 5 schools, then maybe you should consider some safety schools.

Apply to safety schools but not too many like me :)))))

These schools are not even schools that are low in “ranking” They are just schools you wouldn’t mind going to but the point is you’ll def get in.

Apply to schools you feel are what you want without focusing on your major too much

Be aware that yes your major might “matter” but apply to places that interest you as a whole. Your major might change. Your school, probably not.

And know what your comfortable with. Personally, I wanted to go to a school close enough to come home on then weekends but still be able to dorm.

Apply to private schools if you fit any of these 1. You got a dank scholarship 2. You’re not planning on dorming 3. Dream school 4. You’re rich 5. You got a fee waiver and why not

Private schools can be fucking expensive. They are smaller and have a “better quality education” but know that price is the main factor.

Many private schools in Cali offer really good education such as Stanford and USC

But unless they offer you a private school education at a public school price they can put you into some serious debt

Many of them also offer very little financial aid but do give out substantial scholarships. I was offered a $26,000 scholarship to a $65,000 school ???

So unless you have a fee waiver, applying to one of those schools and doing the work for it may not be all it’s cracked up to be in the end.

Work on your personal statement EARLY ASF

THE BIGGEST THING WHEN APPLYING TO COLLEGE IS THE PERSONAL STATEMENT SO IF YOU STRESS OUT ABOUT ANYTHING IT SHOULD BE THIS

Your personal statement is the only place in your college application that you can bluntly state: “IVE STRUGGLED IN LIFE PLEASE ACCEPT ME”

Depending on your past you either dread writing about you or you have nothing to write about.

But seriously start early. And if you don’t know where to start, just free write.

I had a dream and the following day I wrote about that shit and I actually used it in my essay. (As a metaphor)

Apply to Financial Aid and Look & apply for scholarships!

My decision on the school I finally chose had SOO much to do with financial aid.

Some schools sometimes will offer you little to no financial aid and if your a broke bitch like me you’re counting on that financial aid

If paying for college is a factor in your decision plan ahead, like start now.

Career Centers are your holy grail when talking about financial aid and colleges in general.

Look for scholarships to apply to ahead of time and get all the shit you need in order for you to submit them. (Letters of Recs)

Speaking of Letters of Rec, if you are planning on applying to a private school, most likely they will ask you for 2 or more letters of rec

So… 8. Make a Bragging Sheet

A bragging sheet is like a resume but for high school. Make a google doc and put down EVERYTHING YOU HAVE DONE IN HS OR ANYTHING THAT IS WORTHY OF MENTIONING

For example - Associative Student Body 2020-2024 - (Leadership Role: if any) [And then put a brief description of what y'all do but in a profesional manner]

My teacher made me do this after I asked him to write me a letter of rec and it helped me sooo much bc

This helps bc it will give your teachers (those who will write your letter or rec) something to say about you in their letter.

And make sure to give it to every teacher/ counselor that way they know exactly what they should put in your LetOfRec

If you’re a person who has done a lot of activities in HS, this will help bc most applications will ask you what you’ve done

Scholarships ask you what activities you’ve done in HS and you’ll have them all written down on this doc and all you have to do is copy it

It honestly comes in handy guys and it’s really easy to make. Google Bragging Sheet/Letter for more info about how to set it up

Do test scores matter when applying to college? ACT? SAT? AP? Answer: Yes and No

AP scores only matter if the schools you’re applying to actually give you credit for the test you’ve passed

However, if you are planning to go to a UC, AP English Scores are SUPER IMPORTANT so pass them at least with a 3. Or retake them if you can.

AP scores are also important depending on your major. If you are heading towards a STEM major they can help you gain credit in that area.

As for SAT and ACT scores, they matter depending on the school you’re applying to.

Applying to a more prestigious school, and having a better test score puts you at a greater advantage

But there are many cases where people get accepted to their dream school having really good curricular activities and average test scores

Don’t stess too much

The actual college application is fairly easy to navigate. Especially the UC app. But do not wait until the last day!!!

For a couple of years now the website to submit your application will crash the day the app is due so try to finish it at least two days before

But if you do your bragging sheet, those applications will be so easy bc all you have to do is copy and paste what you already have.

Colleges want to see that you saw high school as a 3 sided Pie Chart filling in Academics, Sports, and Extracurriculars

They want to see that even if you didn’t play sports, you excelled in academics or vice versa.

In the end, any school is going to help you get to where you want to go as long as you also put in the effort to make your dreams happen.

Maybe some schools will get you there faster but how would I know, I’m barely starting that path myself lol

Edit: I’m so happy you all have found this post enlightening!! It makes me really happy to have passed on some of my wisdom. Go check out the rest of my posts if you want more detailed info and if you have any questions feel free to ask!!!

Edit #2:

Hi everyone! I’ve noticed this post has been getting a lot of traction recently! I’m now in my third year of college and I just would like to point out that I have no idea how updated the current website is!! So please take into consideration that though some tips may apply the process may be different or updated, I really have no idea! On that note, I wish you all the best!!!

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houseinthesouth · 5 years

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Today’s goal is to rest and write down everything that I can about breaking my leg and dislocating my ankle in the hope that maybe someone else can benefit from it. I’m going to post pics of what each stage of my recovery from ORIF looks like. It may take more than one post. Some of them are not very pretty but this is real life so I’m not going to filter them. This is not a pity party but I am amazed at how much I took something as simple as walking for granted. Being able to wake up and just walk to the another room wasn’t something that I was terribly grateful for. Taking a shower standing with both feet on the floor wasn’t groundbreaking. Being able to carry my own hot cup of coffee from the coffee maker to the couch wasn’t an amazing feat. If you would have told me those were the things I would be praying to be able to do on my own a couple of months ago I would have been horrified. I didn’t think that I was taking my life for granted. In fact I felt like everything was about to be pretty perfect. I was on a “health journey” up to twice a week workouts, 12 pounds lost, and had stopped eating sweets. My youngest son was in the middle of his baseball season and was (finally) really excited to go to practice this year. Summer vacation was about to start and I had many fun travel plans and day trips in mind. I had many home improvement projects planned including putting furniture and decorating our newly emptied and dry basement. The basement has flooded every time it rained for many years and we finally got a drain put in that completely fixed the problem. I will put up a post detailing everything about that soon. We had just bought new furniture, a sectional and recliner, for the den and planned to move the old couch and chair down to the basement. Derek, my husband, had just gotten a promotion and could stop working overtime and spend more time at home. You can see how everything was lining up pretty perfectly. Even before my accident Derek also had to have his first surgery ever.

April 3rd –

After 2 days of complaining about his side and the same amount of days trying to get him to go to the hospital because its the “appendix side” Derek had to go into surgery to have his appendix removed. It was his first surgery and I was really worried but he sailed through surgery and everything went great. My parents kept the kids and I stayed with him in the hospital. The recliner in our den was the only place he felt comfortable after he got to come home. I made sure that he didn’t have to move too much while he recovered and we pretty much slept in the living room for the next few weeks. Thank goodness for the new comfortable furniture. By the 10th he was feeling well enough to be surprised with a Hornet’s game and dinner for his birthday.

April 26th-

After a few more weeks Derek was doing pretty well, had his staples out, and had started going back to work. He wasn’t able to help with yard work or lift anything yet and the yard was getting pretty rough. On a Friday afternoon I cleaned up my yard, picked up sticks, moved all the outdoor furniture, and mowed the lawn. After picking up the kids I created two new flower beds, planted flowers, and put new mulch in them. I cleaned out the stock tank pool and filled it up and was excited to enjoy our Summer ready yard the next day with my boys.

After all hard work it was time to take my youngest to baseball practice. I literally thought about skipping it but I rallied and we headed to practice. Toward the end of practice my son realized that he had left his batting helmet in the car. I climbed the little hill to my car and on my way back down the hill my left foot started sliding and it was either stop myself or fall flat on my face. I kind of wished I would have. I put my right foot down it rolled and I lost my balance all at once and fell on it. I heard two loud sickening pops and realized that the sound was my bones. It sounded like when you are in the woods and step on a stick. My ankle swelled up immediately three times its normal size and turned purple. My foot was completely disconnected out of the joint, I couldn’t move my toes, and my foot was floppy. After yelling for help a few unsuccessful times I ended up having to scoot over to where my phone had landed, several feet over. I called the coach and let him know that I had broken my leg and my ankle was dislocated. Another sweet parent ace bandaged it and after my Mom got there, the coach and another parent picked me up and carried me to the car. We went straight to the ER and they out me into a room and got an IV started. After I had a large ice pack on my ankle and some morphine I felt a little better.

After x-rays I was told by the doctor on call that I would absolutely need surgery because it was a serious break. He said that most fractures don’t need surgery but that I would need the most invasive kind, Orif surgery. Open reduction meant that I would have to have my bones physically put back into alignment during surgery and Internal fixation meant that I would have metal hardware placed with screw to hold my bones together to heal. The doctor said the break around the fibula bone (the smaller bone) was all the way around and down like a candy cane and that there was a chip broken out of the tibia (the larger bone.) I wouldn’t be able to have surgery until the swelling went down so the next thing that I would have would be a splint to stabilize my leg and ankle which would have to be popped back into its socket. That was not pleasant at all. I felt like my foot was slipping out of the joint even still since it was extremely painful when it did. I let the nurse know and she determined that the splint would have to be taken off and a new one set. Again having the foot jammed back into place and held there while the splint dried into place was extremely painful. After all was said and done I was glad to have everything stabilized. I was sent home with crutches, pain medicine, and an appointment at the Orthopedic office a few days after. I was exhausted when I finally got home and couldn’t wait to take my pain medicine and go to sleep. I woke up every two or three hours needing new ice in my icepack to stop the pain and swelling. The next few days I used crutches to get down the hall to the bathroom but didn’t leave the couch other than that. It hurt too much to move around.

April 29th

I arrived at my appointment and let the doctor know that my ankle felt like it was slipping out of the joint again. They x-rayed me again with out removing the splint and saw that I wouldn’t be able to have surgery for another week. I didn’t like the fact that I would be lying on the couch unable to move with a severely broken ankle that wasn’t healing. I also wasn’t super excited that I had an entire week to dread surgery and all the complications that were possible. I was told that I could have a cast placed the next day if I wanted to further stabilize the joint and my leg. I agreed since I had an entire week to wait until surgery. I was given a prescription for stronger pain medicine and a appointment for the following morning to get a cast put on.

April 30th-

I had my appointment and was told that my surgery was scheduled for the following Friday. I would have pre-op the day before on Thursday. The cast tech came in and used scissors to completely remove the splint and ace bandages that covered my leg. It was purple, blue, and green and still a little swollen. When she asked me what color I would like to have for my cast I said purple so I would have something pretty to look at. She put my foot on a metal bar to line it up to a nighty degree angle. The color really didn’t matter because the next thing she did was saw the cast in half on both sides and ace bandage it back together. The doctor has requested this step to make removing it during surgery easier. It had the stability of a cast but the access to my ankle easier. Having the hard cast made my ankle feel so much better and I came home and had a nice bath, sticking my new cast out of the side of the bath tub.

A tip for anyone going through the same thing: To get into the bathtub using only one leg put two towels on a stool beside the bathtub and sit on it. Put your good leg into the bathtub and use it to stand up then hold the sides and sit down before you run the water. Stick the leg with the cast out onto the stool and cover with a towel to avoid it getting wet. You can also purchase a cast cover online or even use a plastic trash bag to cover it. To get out of the bath tub you will reverse the process. I stood on one leg to use the detachable shower head to rinse off and rinse my hair out. At first balancing like a flamingo is hard but it gets easier.

Pre-op wasn’t a huge deal they had me give them a blood and urine sample and sign a few papers. I was given pre-surgery soap to wash with and when I got home I took another bath and washed my hair. When I got out I dried my hair and curled it to feel a little better. I knew that I would be on the couch for even longer and unable to bathe after surgery for a few days. My hair holds curl forever so I wanted to do this so I didn’t look homeless for the coming week. I couldn’t eat or drink after 12 am. We stayed up watching tv and I went to bed nervous.

May 3rd-

The Friday of the surgery Derek drive me to the surgery pavilion and I was put into a room where I changed into a hospital gown. I had a little bag with a change of clothes, makeup and toiletries, and a phone charger in case. The anesthesiologist came in and let me know what to expect and that he would be putting me to sleep with general anesthesia. He also said that he had the option of doing a pain block but would not be doing that in case I needed it more after surgery. After I had my IV placed I was given fluids and something that I was told would feel like I “had a couple drinks.” My husband kissed me goodbye and said that he would be right there and everything would be ok. I remember being wheeled through several doors into the OR but nothing after that. After I was out they put a breathing tube in, anesthesia mask, and preformed my surgery.

I woke up in recovery (PACU) with horrible pain. I had not been able to be woken up. I didn’t remember the first few times but apparently I had acted like someone in bed that wanted to sleep a little longer. I was having an extremely hard time coming out of anesthesia and had two pain medications already placed in my IV. When I came completely out of anesthesia the pain hit me like a truck and I had tears streaming constantly. Nothing they gave me helped the pain and the anesthesiologist came in to give me a nerve block. This was a process of jamming a needle into my thigh above my knee on the front and another on the back of my leg. At this point I was all for this as the pain was almost unbearable. Despite how unpleasant the process was I immediately felt better and was told that I should be able to be discharged soon.

After my pain was managed I was able to be wheeled back into the room where my husband and mom had been waiting. My mom had just left to go pick up my two boys from school. I was so happy to see Derek and be out of surgery. My whole leg was numb but I was given more medicine to stay ahead of the pain and nausea medicine to help with that. The surgery was supposed to be inpatient but every time that I tried to sleep my oxygen levels would tank. All the pain medication and the Narcan that had to be used to finally bring me out of anesthesia had brought my oxygen levels too low and I would have to be admitted overnight.

The next evening I was able to be discharged with a oxycodone, aspirin, and nausea medications and told the nerve block would start to wear off and I need to make sure to take all my medications to stay ahead of the pain that was coming. I did nothing but take medicine and sleep for the next few days.

I had a few complications with healing and I will get more into that on the next post. I will get into what happened when the nerve block wore off and something that caused even more pain during my recovery.

Thanks for reading

,XO Danielle

ORIF Surgery / How I Broke My Ankle Today's goal is to rest and write down everything that I can about breaking my leg and dislocating my ankle in the hope that maybe someone else can benefit from it.

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