A degree from a medical school and a license to practice medicine do not automatically make a person:

Completely free of personal biases and internalized discriminations

Up to date on all the latest medical studies and scientific researches

Know everything, even within their own field of expertise

Never be wrong about anything

Medical abuse, neglect, and gaslighting are very real and they happen to real people all the time.

Doctors are neither perfect nor are they saints. They mess up. They make mistakes. They have moments of poor judgements. They are not right 100% of the time. They are still human.

cellulitis adventures

So on Friday I was cleaning in the barn, hosing rotting meat out of a floor drain. I tripped over the hose, and fell on the hand holding the hose sprayer, in a pile of moldy rat shit I'd tried to clean earlier but hadn't done a great job on. The hose sprayer scraped my thumb, opening up a little cut and tearing the skin, which was annoying and hurt a lot.

Naturally I was like, listen I need to clean this really well, so I did. But I was busy, so I washed it really well and then didn't bandage it, because I had a lot more grubby shit to work on and a bandage would just get soggy. I cleaned it again when I was done, but still forgot to bandage it. it was not a serious cut, it was more of a scrape, and it hadn't really bled much, it was mostly just sort of scabbed over. Not a big deal.

Drove home to Buffalo on Saturday, and noticed it was a little sore, maybe a bit puffy. Ah, not great. I cleaned it again, put neosporin on it this time. Went to bed. In the morning I reapplied antibiotic gel and put a band-aid on it, and went off to work, off to Dude's aunt's house where his mother is clearing it out. (Aunt had to go into a long-term-care apartment downstate near her daughter, after a stroke left her with poor working memory, and nobody's happy about this but the house needs to be gone through and her sister is the one to do it. And we are the ones to help her; her children live a few hundred to a thousand miles away, and wouldn't know what to do with the things in Latvian anyway.)

Anyway. Finished with that, took a nap, ran some errands. My thumb was a bit achy under that band-aid, but I was busy. It wasn't until I was making dinner and noticed a red line on my wrist that I realized I ought to give this more attention.

I finished making dinner, sat down, took off my watch to look at the red line a bit better. Now, I have really pale skin, and it shows red marks from everything; I expected it was red from steam from the cooking. But no, the line curved and went unaltered under where the band of my watch had been, and out the other side. It was under my skin, not the surface of it.

So I took a picture of it and sent it to an online buddy who is a nurse, who said immediately to go to urgent care, not to wait and see if it cleared up overnight because it was not going to. And now that I've come out the other side of this with some antibiotics, I thought I would write a little post and tell y'all what to worry about, because it was no big deal in my case but if I had waited it might well have been. So behind the cut will be a very non-gory photograph, which possibly will look more dramatic than it would on your skin because I have so little pigment in mine. But mine was a very clear textbook case, so I figure it's a good example. Again though, no gore, so I do encourage you to look even if you're squeamish, because it's really good to get an idea in your mind about danger.

For the record, urgent care turned me away so I went to the ER and while I waited a long time, the staff, rushed off their feet and far too busy, was still kind and reassured me I had done exactly the correct thing in coming in. This is the kind of thing it's trivial to fix up with a routine course of oral antibiotics if you catch it, but if it goes too long it can get into all kinds of bodily systems and become very difficult to safely eradicate, and can cause lasting, even permanent complications.

So I thought, for other dumbasses like me who would ignore a throbbing cut, here is a little PSA about Shit To Definitely Not Ignore, and thanks times several million to my online nurse buddy who told me so.

Behind the cut, a photo that does not include the actual injury or any gore or disfigurement, but very clearly shows the telltale sign, which is redness from inflammation from the infection traveling through the lymphatic system, and is like, a prime time danger sign and if you see this seek care and do not delay. I haven't been able to find good pictures of what this looks like on darker skin, alas, but here it is on me.

[Image description: the right forearm and hand of a pale-skinned person, lying on the edge of a table with the fingers loosely closed, thumb upward. The thumb goes off the top of the frame, and a bandage is just visible circling it. A red line wavers from the side of the thumb down along the back of the heel of the hand, curves down along the inner edge of the wrist, and then curves down to the underside of the arm. Several blue veins are also dimly visible through the skin, not following quite the same path as the red line, which is wider and blurrier than they are. The red line is quite blurry and hard to see in some places, clearer and more distinct in others, and in one place clearly but briefly splits to follow two channels before reuniting into one. There's also a faint dent visible in the skin at the side of the wrist, where the buckle of a watch was; the red line is not otherwise interrupted by where the skin had been covered by the watch.]

Again, the injury itself was a little gnarly but not anything I would have sought treatment for on its own; it was a bit sore to bend my thumb, it was getting a bit red and swollen but I had it under a bandage and wasn't monitoring it. The red streak was what made me look, and it's good I did. For the record, i don't know if this is typical, but pressing down at the point right on the side of my wrist where that red streak was widest was tender, like pressing a bruise, and isn't this morning; that was what really convinced me this was something from the inside and not a weird mark left by touching something from the outside. I don't know if that would be universal, and it wasn't tender along the whole length of it, but right there it's going over bone so I could really feel it. It's not raised at all, not a rash, it felt like bruising deep under the skin but if you pull your finger across it didn't fade or change color or have any kind of texture to it at all. This morning it's not tender anymore either, though the injury itself is a bit more painful than it was.

They gave me a dose of antibiotics last night around 10pm, and the streaking has faded, but the injury itself is more angry and swollen and is affecting my grip strength with that hand. I plan to follow the course of antibiotics, of course, and am grateful for modern medicine, which makes this mostly just an amusing anecdote. Who knew scraping your hand in a barn full of rat shit was dangerous! (Well, I did.)

Anyway-- off to see about filling this prescription. I gotta take it four times a day but like, y'know, I can handle that in exchange for not having sepsis, LOL.

a lawsuit against the state of Texas

On August 1st we venerate Ancestor Henrietta Lacks on her 103rd birthday 🎉

Sister Henrietta is known throughout the world as, "The Mother Of Modern Medicine", being the biological source of the HeLa cells - 1st immortalized human cell line, which has been central to cancer research studies & methods. Billions of her cells are presently used in biomedical research development around the world, notably in the manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines, mapping the human genome, HIV/AIDS & cancer treatments, testing human cells against zero gravity in space, other vaccine research, & undoubtedly much more.

Today, however, venerate the woman behind the medical atrocities that it took to achieve such a feight.

Born Roanoke, VA, a young Henrietta grew up working on a tobacco farm with her father, her 9 siblings, & extended relatives on their land in Clover, VA - where their ancestors had worked as slaves. She'd lost her to complications of child birth when she was just 4yrs old. Due to his lack of patience, her father divided his children to be raised among different relatives accordingly. Henrietta was to be raised by her grandfather, who had already taken in her First-Cousin, David "Day" Lacks - who she later married. Henrietta continued her schooling until the 6th grade. On a hopeful prayer, they left Clover, VA for Turner Station, MD to escape the impoverished life that came with tobacco farming. There, they settled down to start their family.

While pregnant with her 5th child, Henrietta discovered a painful knot inside her that persisted through atypical bleeding post-childbirth, among other symptoms. Finally, she sought medical treatment. Prior to this, she & her family would lay flowers at the local Jesus statue, recite prayers & rub his feet for good luck. Henrietta kept her diagnosis to herself so as to not worry her family; she was determined to overcome her medical condition on her own.

While receiving treatment at a segregated ward in John Hopkins University, doctors took a tissue sample of her tumor for medical research without her knowledge or consent. This was an everyday practice at most medical institutions of the time. Unfortunately, Sister Henrietta did not survive her treatment. She was later buried at the Lacks Family Cemetery in Clover, Va.

Following her death, the medical research scientists from John Hopkins University coerced her husband to consenting to have an autopsy conducted on her remains; they claimed doing so would provide beneficial health information to his children. This allowed them to lawfully collect tissue samples from all of Henrietta 's organs. As of 2020, the cells from these tissue samples that were collected on that day & prior are THE most widely used in biomedical research labs around the world.

For all her pain, suffering, & desecration (of which the latter continues presently), may Sister Henrietta be forever elevated in peace, healing, & light in the spiritual as her physical essence has become immortalized in the physical.

We pour libations💧& give her 💐 today as we celebrate her for her love of family, community, & faith.

Offering suggestions: prayers toward her elevation, libations of water, catholic prayers, & a Catholic Bible.

‼️Note: offering suggestions are just that & strictly for veneration purposes only. Never attempt to conjure up any spirit or entity without proper divination/Mediumship counsel.‼️

me: I do trust modern medicine, let me try this new plant based pill-

also me, because slav: IT'S NOT ALCOHOLISM I JUST NEED TO DISINFECT MY INSIDES

By God?

Source

Take two fistfuls of Magic and Wonder and call me in The Morning

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who liked or reblogged something from you! Get to know your mutuals and followers :3

woah, this is cool!

My partner

my fandoms

Modern medicine

cult of the lamb

pirating

Every medical insurance should cover the following for everybody:

Mobility aids

Sensory aids

Braces

Orthopedic shoes

Compression wear

Glasses

Hearing aids

Service dogs

Psychotherapy

Occupational therapy

Physical therapy

Home care aides

Ok so I am neck deep in an umbrella academy phase right now so obviously I’ve been reading my weight in Five Angst Fics and I once again have some ✨Thoughts✨ about him.

So basically in a lot of fics, (and even in canon- e.g. the shrapnel injury) whenever five gets an injury he never looks after it or cleans it or anything, and while it does make for good angst potential, I think that it’s unrealistic. Like, he spent the majority of his life in the apocalypse, which is definitely not very sanitary- he would have had to be very careful about avoiding infection in even the smallest of injuries.

It would be more realistic if Five was really meticulous about keeping his injuries clean and covered but in a very…. ‘I lived without modern medicine or doctors and with very limited supplies for 40 years’ kinda way. Like he keeps his materials and tools and stuff clean but doesn’t sterilise anything because it doesn’t even occur to him that he can do that. Or if they run out of bandages in the medbay it would never even cross his mind to go out and buy some because that simply wasn’t an option for the majority of his life.

Basically: I think it would be more realistic if Five did take care of his injuries, just in a very post-apocalyptic fashion.

That is all thank you.

It needn't be said, but modern medicine is amazing. Most people typically point to examples of life-saving medication, operations, and practices, but there's a lot of examples that just improve your life in small ways.

For most of human history, if you had something like a headache then there's a plethora of vague methods of treating it. Some of them might have just been placebo effects (which is now better understood through modern medicine!). Now, if you have a headache, you can just take acetaminophen or ibuprofen, which are common, OTC, and affordable.

If your left ear is muffled, there wasn't a solid solution to fixing it. Now, if you go to a doctor and explain that your ear is muffled, it just takes a couple of minutes to clean out the earwax and you can hear perfectly again.

Those small advancements in modern medicine reduced very common problems down to ridiculously easy solutions.

Since youthful looks are praised how would society react to a scenario where upon all of humanity suddenly looks fourteen until death as well as what would the legalities/ethics be involved in such a scenario?

Society would probably make it mandatory to show your ID to everyone so they know whether to treat you like crap or not. The market for fake IDs would absolutely skyrocket. The legalities/ethics? Of what? I guess of human existence because I'd argue its super unethical to put someone with a small body which cannot handle pregnancy through pregnancy.

Also like... what does it mean to "look 14" in general. Does everyone look like the *idea* of 14 or like they look when they *became* 14. Some people don't hit puberty until 15 all the way up to 18. So that also makes me wonder about healthy hormone levels. Crossing the pregnancy issue with a solution like artificial insemination and using incubators. The commonality of HRT and other hormone therapies would skyrocket. The price might too if capitalist society maintains. Trans people who dont start puberty until 12 or 13 would have an infinite window of time to attain hrt without their bones settling. Cis people who didn't start puberty would need hormones to maintain their body's health. Hormones would make the body grow and mature so I imagine it also makes this hypothetical a little silly. Because we'd simply medicine this out of existence if it happened through use of hormone therapy and other things.

But let's say hormone therapy manages to keep your body healthy but does not make you physically mature for some reason past the *idea* of 14. Well. I think victims of child abuse would absolutely hate it to still look the same as they did when they were being hit or whatnot.

There are not enough details in your question so I won't analyze further. Also when people praise generally youthful looks its usually someone who looks the *idea* of 16-21 ish. Not 14. Because this ideal is not entirely dependent on the concept of youth, it requires the person to have finished physically maturing.

If historians magically one day come across a stereo that is 500 years old in Japan that is full of relatively modern western club songs… *ahem* It wasn’t me.