Ruby-The-Scholar @ruby-the-scholar - Tumblr Blog

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depsidase

drlivistoned

I hate the cosmetic surgery industry for so many reasons I really do. But the line between cosmetic and medically necessary plastic surgeries is as a cloud, and we cannot sacrifice bodily autonomy for bans so. We need to dismantle white supremacy and the patriarchy in order to effectively tackle the issue. I should be able to get elective top surgery without medicalising my transness you get?

femmeharlequin-deactivated20240

I had a breast reduction when I was 16. I was so top heavy that my back had started spasming badly by the time I was 12, if I hadn’t been able to get my reduction, I would’ve been in more extreme pain for much longer. The relief was almost instant. Just one example of medically necessary plastic surgery, in case people aren’t sure what that looks like.

Medically necessary plastic surgery also includes removing excess skin when someone loses a lot of weight: skin folds can become infected. Burn victims’ skin grafts, those are plastic surgery too. The field covers a lot more than people think.

cheeseanonioncrisps

Harold Gillies, now considered to be the father of modern plastic surgery, developed most of his techniques (many of which are still in use today) specifically to reconstruct the faces of men who'd been injured in WW1.

Advances in weaponry meant that, for the first time, men were coming home from war with literally half their faces blown off, on a regular basis. This was not only traumatic— there were cases of men cancelling engagements or being afraid to see their families, because of their disfigurements— but also caused problems with every day tasks like speaking and eating, in which your face plays a pretty key role.

Gillies arranged for a whole ward, and later a hospital, to be dedicated to the treatment of these men, and took steps to ensure that all soldiers who received these kinds of injuries on the battlefield would be sent to him directly. He developed methods for applying skin grafts so that larger portions of the face could be repaired.

He continued his work treating wounded soldiers throughout WW1 and WW2, and when both wars were ended— just in case he hadn't done enough to establish himself as a full on hero— he was then approached by a medical student named Michael Dillon, a trans man, and was able to use the same techniques he'd developed to reconstruct the penises of wounded soldiers to give him a phalloplasty. The first one ever performed on a trans man. He even diagnosed the guy with a condition to explain the frequent operations, so as to avoid outing him.

Dillon later wrote a book about trans-ness, which inspired Roberta Cowell, who became the first British transwoman to get a vaginoplasty, also performed by Gillies.

In both cases, the techniques he developed were still being used in similar operations decades later. Gillies himself stated that he wanted no publicity for performing these operations, saying that "If it gives real happiness, that is the most that any surgeon or medicine can give.”

inkskinned

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht.

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

inkskinned

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

revizyonist

med people are so annoying "This family's 8 year old child who was about to go through a major surgery and kept crying that she was hungry so they pitied her and gave her food, she then had a heart attack in the surgery. They're so stupid 😒" girl they didn't know that could happen or why it happens. it takes so little time to explain to them that will happen instead of telling them "no food" with no explanation 10 times

revizyonist

"Before surgery, your body’s reflexes that protect your airway are relaxed by anesthesia. If there’s food or liquid in your stomach, it will near certainly come back up and go into your lungs, which can cause choking, a severe lung / heart infection or even a heart attack. That’s called aspiration, and it is life-threatening. It's hard, but it's only a single day to prevent near certain death. Not eating or drinking beforehand massively lowers the risk and helps prevent these life threatening situations under anesthesia." <- TIP: patients have brains which allows them to receive information just like you

ancelineonline

I have four kids. I’ve had one or another of them need some kind of surgical procedure that requires anesthesia four or five times over the past 15 years.

This Tumblr post is the first time someone has explained to me *why* I couldn’t feed them before those instances.

I’m not stupid. I understood that just fine. Hell, my kids would have understood that just fine. But no one bothered to tell us.

bowditch

i did know this before having kids (i have six). we have a kid that's needed multiple procedures requiring anesthesia. and every single time, i am asked multiple times if i'm sure he was not given any food or water after a certain point.

every single time i have had to say, "i understand that if he had food or water, he could aspirate it into his lungs under anesthesia. i am not lying to you." THEN someone would make a little note and i would stop being repeatedly asked.

not a single time was that risk explained to me. the only reason it came up was because i already knew. i still don't understand why it isn't standard pre-op counseling or pre-op check information, when me as a parent acknowledging the actual risk also put THE MEDICAL STAFF at ease because i conveyed that i had informed understanding as reason to not lie about giving my kid food.

"maybe some people will get nervous and refuse surgery" okay so they need more counseling about risks and anxiety, not less information in a way that actually does endanger their child or themselves!

arctic-turtle-cassiopeia

Reblogging to save a life and teach medical professionals basic communication skills

snowkissedmonsters

As many of you know I've been scouting for a new laptop, and unfortunately everything is infested with AI, but on top of that so many reviews are like

"this laptop is great but only if you do a full system wipe immediately upon purchasing and then rebuild the operating system exactly as you want it :) otherwise all the preinstalled Windows 11 apps will make it totally inoperable :) but other than that I recommend!"

depsidase

inkskinned

how many times have you heard i want to kiss girls but it's scary. you have said those words, even. you flinch but you still do feel it - kissing men is easier, dating men is easier. there is already a social contract about it. a republican's wet dream; you had been socially conditioned to "know" what to do, even if it has never explicitly been described to you. the man and the woman get together, end of story.

you want women, of course. you want them, badly. and sometimes you wonder about that. is it because a man isn't real to you? this thing you have with men - is it only easier because you wouldn't have to change anything? your parents can pretend you're "straight", no matter how many times you exit the closet or say i'm at least half gay.

are you just... afraid?

because what if it's not true. what if kissing girls is just as easy - better, even - than kissing boys. what if dating girls means there's no weird subtle power imbalance; means that your life is full of laughter and love.

or maybe it's because if men don't find you attractive - well, okay, whatever. they can choke. you don't exist to make men happy, certainly. you can shave your head and let your leg hair grow out and dye your eyebrows because fuck what men think.

but what do women want? what if you try as hard as you can and you are not what women want? or worse - what if they do want you, but you have no idea how to treat them? certainly dating a woman is not dating a man; and you only have the manual (ha!) for one kind of relationship. everyone at this queer bar probably has kissed and hooked up and knows interesting positions to fold other women into. they've probably had sex in the bathroom and know where to slide their fingers into.

logically you know every body is different. there is no singularly correct way to have sex or kiss or love anyone of any gender. you know some people need to suck toes or do gymnastics or picture wife-roaches. so how hard could it be, really.

but you tell yourself - well, the dating pool is smaller. you have heard so many wlw horror stories from your friends - like their exes randomly appearing at a party, or the time three of your friends all accidentally dated the same person at once. and your lesbian friend warns you - wlw breakups hit harder.

and it's not like you're unhappy. you are happy, certainly. the man you're with now might genuinely be the love of your life. he paints his nails and likes bugs and treats you like a princess.

but still. in the late night, you feel your heart stutter. because what if it isn't really that difficult. what if you're just creating false assumptions in your head in order to fit a fear-based narrative. what if this is your internalized homophobia; what if it's heteronormativity; what if you're the only thing stopping you. what if those rules don't exist, and you're imagining scenarios so that you never take a risk.

what if.