[sapphling]

in general i think it's kind of worse than useless to always fall back on this assumption that people are being "tricked" into being mras or twerfs or white supremacists or usamerican jingoists etc. etc. when you can ask the question "how do they stand to materially benefit from this hate movement" and 9/10 times find a very easy answer

[wheremermaidsdwell]

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.

[intosnarkness]

Some of you might remember me talking about this when it happened- please read and be aware that strokes can happen at any age!

[homoeroticjunoincident]

reblog to make prev stop having headaches

[saltoncity]

work tomorrow is one of the worst things that can happen to you

[whetstonefires]

easy to miss that one of the reasons maternal mortality is diminished so extremely by modern medicine is that modern medicine makes it so much more possible to identify the pregnancies that will die and take you with them, or are otherwise unacceptably high risk. and then discontinue those ones safely, before it's too late.

thought about this because it's so frustrating when people argue that 'dying in childbirth' is a historical sort of event that doesn't happen nowadays (false) and therefore is irrelevant to the legal status of abortion, since it's not a real danger.

except it super is, and i think a lot of people haven't noticed that this argument in addition to simply being incorrect is basically the same as when people say we don't need vaccines for deadly diseases because no one gets those now anyway.

like yeah one reason for that is we vaccinate everybody ffs.

[libraflyter]

Note: after the end of Roe v Wade in the US, the maternal mortality rate (and the infant mortality rate) are showing clear increases in the states with the strictest anti-abortion laws.

Forcing people to carry high risk or non viable pregnancies to term kills.

[freepaleatine955]

People outside Gaza think that the war against us is over, and that we are living in peace and tranquility, but they do not know that the war is still ongoing.

The bombing, death, hunger, and displacement do not stop for a single moment. What has actually stopped is the world's interest, questions, and follow-up. We do not know if they have grown tired of us and become accustomed to our tragedy, or if the media has deceived them and contributed to misleading them!

Be the alternative media, do not forget Gaza, do not get tired of it, and do not stop talking about it, for whoever does not care about the affairs of people is not one of them!!

[freepaleatine955]

Don't overthink helping families in Gaza; participation makes a difference in their lives, and donating makes a big difference.

[freepaleatine955]

Here are some families from Gaza who need help.

Help Mahmoud's family from here

Help Karim's family from here

[closet-keys]

My friends Mahmoud and Mahrah are siblings from Gaza. I have been friends with Mahrah since early 2025. She introduced me to her brother later that year, and I introduced both of them to my wife. We have a group chat together. My wife (@cannilyuncanny) now hosts their family's fundraiser (vetted by 90-ghost and shared by fairuzfan) and wires transfers of donations directly to Mahrah.

I am texting with Mahmoud right now as I write this, and I want to assure anyone who needs the assurance that @freepaleatine955 is the shared blog of Mahmoud and Mahrah. They previously posted from palestinian95, and before that from mahrahpalestine. Recently, tumblr staff have been aggressively targeting Palestinian blogs and deleting them. Many people are having to recreate blogs and rebuild their networks.

Please share widely so others can find them!

[zmpl]

do you consider online text posts to be “true” reading/writing similar to books or articles?

yes

no

Remaining time: 3 days 6 hours

no nuance, if you answer is “sometimes” or “in certain circumstances” your answer is yes

[crimeronan]

sometimes i have strong opinions but they're also so inane that halfway through writing a post i'll be like "yeah, this is Absolutely not worth the energy it's taking" and delete everything. but then the opinion is still in my head. and i still want to share it. so within five minutes i go "you know, i bet i can phrase it more succinctly this time" and anyway. you all see where this is going. sometimes i do this four times in a row before i give up on the specific inane opinion and instead write a vague post about the concept of opinions as if that'll satisfy the urge to post the entirety of my inner monologue online. may or may not be relevant to what you're reading right now. and now all our lives have been enriched. you're welcome

[dogpuppy]

[scalpho]

the problem with personality tests and other similar quizzes is that they assume you know things about yourself. Which is simply not true

[shadeslayer]

my special wish for pride is that everyone stop attaching aromanticism to asexuality constantly automatically always. in particular talk about aromanticism without evoking asexuality at all. because it is a completely different thing with a different meaning

[natalieironside]

Shout out to trans women who aren't computer scientists or musicians or avant-garde artists or whatever.

Shout-out to tgirls who work at Taco Bell. Thank u queen, society would collapse without you

[snkrfnd]

Over twenty years ago my big brother got me a job at a Taco Bell in the St. Louis suburbs-West County. He warned me that it was the "gay Taco Bell", but since I was coming from the "gay Howard Johnson's" I wasn't shocked. It turns out it was the black trans women Taco Bell complete with black trans women in management. And they'd worked out an arrangement with the local teen Narcotics Anonymous group so that twice a week we would shut down the drive thru and the dining room and exclusively serve 60+ teens in various stages of recovery. And many of the women I worked with were in various stages of being out or transitioning and they were from all generations from teens to over 50. One woman I worked with had a regular corporate job presenting as a man 9-5 Mon-Fri and then came to Taco Bell and worked 6pm -2am Friday and Saturday night so she could be herself surrounded by other black transwomen in those stolen weekends. And we had customers come from all over the metro area because they knew they could be themselves in the dining room. I only worked there from 1999-2001 but for young me, this was a vital, formative experience. Some of the girls came from north city all the way out to the "gay Taco Bell" on Manchester in west county because they heard it was safe to work there. Like- I know times have changed but they haven't changed much in 20 years. I'm still convinced that for lgbt youth, finding a job at your city's version of the "gay Taco Bell" is key to survival.

[natalieironside]

Thank u for sharing this with us

[knightofleo]

[herpsandbirds]

Common eider

[phynoma]

This needs to be immortalized because it's what made me turn on the sound. And they were right

[amazoogle]

completely lirious and ranged. absolutely lusional. not only mented but fective, too. engaging in praved behavior. a real generate

[demonfoxbunny]

we're going to be short on rent this month probably by a couple hundred, and i don't have anything to cover the 431 monthly on the storage unit that was supposed to be shorter term.

if anyone can help a trans girl and her wife out, here's my paypl and my vnmo and ko-fi

[demonfoxbunny]

this is true again.....if i get groceries for me and my wife we won't have rent. and we didn't manage to get the storage cleared bc i got sick. and bc i got sick i'm out like several days of pay. and i still need to pay my phone and for my meds and hopefully at some point the dentist. and they're going to start asking me to pay back my student loans soon on top of everything else

[barnowlbutch]

My friend, eating Chinese broccoli: have you noticed that this spinach has broccoli vibes

[sapphling]

and like really the thing is just that, like any other form of abstinence-only education (whether it be abstinence from sex altogether or from unprotected or other higher-risk sex), treating STIs as a moral failing and/or a horror story is directly counter to the best possible measure against widespread unchecked infection, which is regular testing. getting tested and knowing your partners' stasuses is the #1 thing that can allow you to treat infections when they happen, make informed decisions about the sex you're having, access prep and pep when relevant etc. and frankly that testing does not happen in a social environment where a positive is treated as the end of the world, because stupid or not, many people will respond to said environment by avoiding testing altogether so that they don't have to reckon with the possibility