sO BECAUSE OF DASHCON 2 I WENT TO THE TORONTO AIRPORT AND STARTED SCREAMING AT 6AM AND NATURALLY SOMEONE THOUGHT I WAS BEING MURDERED AND CALLED BORDER PATROL AND WHEN THEY GOT HERE I HAD TO GIVE THEM MY EXPLANATION FOR SCREAMING AT 6AM SO I JUST SAID DASHCON AND ONE OF THE CUSTOMS AGENTS EYES SUDDENLY GOT REALLY BIG AND THEN HE SAID “A SECOND ONE?!?” AND THEN HE READ THE TRENDING TAG ON HIS PHONE I HAVE A GROWN CUSTOMS AGENT SITTING ON MY LUGGAGE CRYING AND CURSING AT STRANGE AEONS UNDER HIS BREATH HIS PARTER GAVE HIM A SHOCK BLANKET OH MY GOD
*jumps up and down waving my hands and yelling in a crowd* DISCORD WAS NEVER MEANT TO REPLACE FORUMS AND WIKIS!!! IT'S JUST EMBELLISHED CHATROOMS WITH MULTIPLAYER GAMING FEATURES AND LOOTBOXES AND SHIT!!! PLEASE PUT FAQS AND MESSAGE BOARDS OR AT LEAST A DIRECT EMAIL-BASED SUPPORT SYSTEM ON YOUR WEBSITE!!! 1GB NEOCITIES DOMAIN ZERO DOLLARS
*jumps up and down waving my hands and yelling in a crowd* DISCORD WAS NEVER MEANT TO REPLACE FORUMS AND WIKIS!!! IT'S JUST EMBELLISHED CHATROOMS WITH MULTIPLAYER GAMING FEATURES AND LOOTBOXES AND SHIT!!! PLEASE PUT FAQS AND MESSAGE BOARDS OR AT LEAST A DIRECT EMAIL-BASED SUPPORT SYSTEM ON YOUR WEBSITE!!! 1GB NEOCITIES DOMAIN ZERO DOLLARS
*jumps up and down waving my hands and yelling in a crowd* DISCORD WAS NEVER MEANT TO REPLACE FORUMS AND WIKIS!!! IT'S JUST EMBELLISHED CHATROOMS WITH MULTIPLAYER GAMING FEATURES AND LOOTBOXES AND SHIT!!! PLEASE PUT FAQS AND MESSAGE BOARDS OR AT LEAST A DIRECT EMAIL-BASED SUPPORT SYSTEM ON YOUR WEBSITE!!! 1GB NEOCITIES DOMAIN ZERO DOLLARS
I maintain that the best summation of my feminist beliefs are that men and women are not fundamentally different. There are a few quantifiable differences if you average out every woman and every man, but they are not qualitative. And most of them are socially constructed, and would be fixed if we started treating men and women the same. Neither is inherently smarter, neither is inherently kinder, neither is inherently more stoic or stronger or angrier or softer. Everyone is obsessed with the differences between women and men, with finding them and creating them and distancing themselves from the "other half". It's fucked up
This was the mainstream feminist belief like. A decade ago. Thats how hard we’ve regressed within mainstream feminism and it’s mainly because of right wingers/radfems/TERFs deciding trans women need to die.
I've been meaning to make a post talking about my stroke because y'all got bits and pieces of the recovery but I never actually told the story of HOW it went down and the thing is the type of stroke I had is usually the type young people have and since having mine i've now heard multiple stories of people under 40 having very similar strokes and the scary thing is, is that they didn't get help right away. Because you're young and healthy and sure you feel weird but it'll pass right? but it doesn't, and it gets worse, and by the time you get to the hospital (some people literally take days to go) the deficits are worse and recovery is harder.
so here's a super long post about strokes in general, and mine in particular/what I went through.
So for strokes the signs are abbreviated BE FAST. Balance loss, Eyesight changes, Face drooping, Arm weakness, Speech difficulty, -> Time to call 911.
Had I known those MAYBE I would have figured it out but my symptoms were a little mixed. I was reading (fanfic!) in bed because it was a sunday morning and i had nothing pressing to do and suddenly got dizzy. I put my laptop aside because my eyes were blurring (Eyesight changes - symptom #1), and laid down, thinking it would pass, it didn't, it's a little vague how it progressed because I'd been having headaches and neckpain for about 3 weeks leading up to it so I was like 'idk is this a migraine?' (headaches can be a stroke symptom so symptom #2) but i got nauseous and eventually got up and to my utmost surprise I immediately fell over as if I was the drunkest of frat bros. The room literally spun before my eyes as I fell to the floor (Balance loss - symptom #3). I have had some Nights and I had never been that unsteady before. I crawled my way to the bathroom, threw up (nausea - not a common stroke symptom) , took 800mg of ibuprofen, and crawled back to bed.
if you know anything about ibuprofen you might know it's a mild blood thinner and that's a high dose. I may have inadvertently helped myself with that one. I was just feeling like shit and thinking 'idk this might help'
At this point I still thought we were still in Normal Land. Sure, it was a weird morning, but Surely There Was A Reason. (Yes There Was) Anyway, as I'm lying there willing my body to stop suffering I realize my arm is going numb (stroke symptom #4) and I switch positions, because weird, but it doesn't go away, and I gave it a good little while. I'm on a medication that can make my limbs tingle but it usually just does it to my fingers and it dissipates quickly but this wasn't dissipating, and then I realized one of my legs was also going numb. Then one side of my face is going numb.
(at the time I did not look in the mirror but I had a drooping eyelid - symptom #5)
Those all seem bad. I grab my computer and google 'when to go to the hospital for dizzyness' as that felt like the worst of my problems. and indeed the list I found highlighted that if you are also experiencing loss of balance, blurred vision, nausea, and limb numbness, you should see a doctor. That seems like far too many symptoms to be having all to be listed. I grab my phone (thankfully plugged in and by my bed), and start layering on more clothing because it's about 10 degrees out and i'm in a pajama dress. The very nice man at 911 talks with me and sends an ambulance, I tell him I don't think I can get out the front door of my building on my own and he asks if I can get to MY apartment door to which I say yes and he assures me that's fine they will have keys to my building.
(I have been since informed they love to chop down doors but no, I could get that far)
I wait by my door laying down on the ground and they arrive pretty quickly. They see to me in the hallway, which is more of a lobby in my building and the only place with room for me to lie down (I cannot stand unassisted at this point) they ask me a bunch of questions, take vitals, and ask me where I would like to be taken. Me, having never had to go to the fucking hospital in an emergency before, simply go 'wherever is close' because I again, I am having a stroke and do not have the wherewithal to think through these things.
A big firefighter helps me down the stairs (it's only a half flight and I still almost did not make it) and we get underway.
At the hospital they wheel me into triage and I mostly lie there gratefully and answer some questions and respond to some tests (grip strength, following a pen with my eyes, that sort of thing) and then I hear what is great when you've been at urgent care for two hours but what is Very Bad when you just arrived in an ambulance and that's 'She's next'. I jumped the line for a CT scan and an MRI. I was there less than ten minutes before I was actively being scanned. honestly closer to five.
my active symptoms seem to have been worse than some of the stories I've heard, not being able to walk AT ALL in particular, although some other are pretty equal (Footless Jo on youtube had a stroke around the same time I did of the same type and has discussed hers, she delayed going in despite the severity for a variety of reasons and it sounds like her recovery has been difficult) My recovery was pretty easy because i was actively being cared for and on blood thinners right away. I was pretty out of it in the beginning, but I was only in the hospital for 6 days and then in a rehab for another 4 to relearn how to walk and balance, then i was released unto the world and just spent time going to physical therapy and recovering for awhile. I was out of work for about 8 weeks total. I basically had the best outcome for a stroke. I recovered almost fully back to 100% (I'm about 2% less sure footed than I used to be, but it's rarely noticeable), my face still feels a little weird but has markedly improved so I live in hope it will eventually get back to normal. It massively sucked. But strokes can fuck you up for life and I came out a weird medical story to tell and have to take some extra medication now/precautions to take (i cannot do certain types of yoga, no weightlifting, no push ups, no going on rollercoasters.... things that could strain my neck essentially) but overall I escaped very lucky.
For anyone who has ever had covid before, please be sure you are aware of stroke symptoms. Each successive infection raises the risk in a pretty major way, and a lot of people are dying young due to not knowing these signs or being afraid to act on them. Please take care of yourselves.
My wife had a stroke a couple years ago at like 40 (also possibly a covid thing, their BP wasn’t high and it wasn’t an obstruction thing) with basically no lasting symptoms. But we both have psych related degrees and decent insurance at the time so the MOMENT I saw the asymmetrical face droopiness I was on the phone with 911, followed by friends in the area who could stay home with kiddo. By the time the ambulance arrived they couldn’t walk. Now they’re back to exercise and almost all our old usual activities.
it is a rookie mistake to assume that the person making deeply anachronistic, inaccurate, and fairytale-esque knightposts knows nothing about real knights. i know all about real knights. i just think overseeing the farmland on your estate, explicitly being in it for (more) land and money, fighting less than half the year, and dying of cholera is sort of boring while swearing undying oaths is really sexy
I love that thing when people get a little bit tongue-tied and garble what they’re trying to say so they make a little “blegh” 👅 noise and start over. verbal reset button. hitting the top of the tv to unscramble the signal