land of tea & codeine

Sideblog for disability/medical and general real-life-stuff posts. I'm 36, queer, and disabled; I have Ehlers Danlos syndrome type 3 (a connective tissue disorder affecting joints, skin and cartilage) and related immune system/autonomic system issues, plus sleep disorders and mental health issues. This is a side blog, so it can't follow back; my fandom-and-silly-pictures blog is secretseakrait.

[ok2befat]

It's ok to be fat and need to use mobility aids, like scooters or a wheelchair or a cane or anything else.

Fat disabled people are ok.

It’s ok to be fat and disabled.

It’s ok to use mobility aids as much or as little as works for you.

You are the boss of your own body. You have done nothing wrong. 

I support you. You are important. 

Making shitty jokes or being an asshole about fat people who need mobility scooters is wrong. 

Anyone who replies to this with something nasty about fat people who use mobility scooters will be blocked. 

I don’t care if you’ve followed this blog for three years. Immediately blocked. 

You are making people afraid to use the tools they need to be able to use, that exist to make life easier for them. That is NOT ok. You should be ashamed of your behavior. 

Go do better. 

[tea-and-codeine]

me: finally gets steroid shots for my fucked up shoulder

shoulder: starts to feel better

me: hey nice, i guess those things wor--

my brain: or maybe it isnt hurting because it was NEVER REAL IN THE FIRST PLACE, HUH, FAKEY MCFAKERSON

[vancouverautistics]

{Image is of a flyer for the 2017 Disability Day of Mourning Vigil in New Westminster.

Text reads: DISABILITY DAY OF MOURNING 2017 REMEMBERING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES MURDERED BY FAMILY AND CARETAKERS CANDLELIGHT VIGIL

WEDNESDAY MARCH 1 5:00 - 6:30 PM Woodlands Memorial Garden New Westminster, BC V3L 5E8

“Mourn for the dead, and fight for the living” — Mother Jones

People with disabilities are twice as likely as non-disabled people to be victims of violent crime. Every year, dozens of people with disabilities are killed by family members or caregivers.

Too often, the coverage focuses on sympathy for the murderer, because they had to live with or care for a person with a disability. The message to the public is that our lives—not our deaths—are the tragedy.

On March 1st, join the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network in remembering people with disabilities who lost their lives at the hands of family members or caregivers. We will remember those we have lost and remind the world that their lives — and ours — have value.

Contact Us: facebook.com/ASANVan [email protected]}

Disability Day of Mourning is one week from today. We invite everyone to join us on this important day to honour those whose lives have been taken away unjustly by filicide, neglect, and ableism.

ASAN also has an Anti-Filicide Toolkit, which can be accessed here.

[caesuriia]

@allthecanadianpolitics

[lesbianspaceprincess]

My friend explained the spoon theory to our DM and he was like “ohhh so it’s like when you’re out of spell slots and you need to take a long rest to regain them all” and now I keep thinking of myself as being out of spell slots instead of out of spoons

[andisupreme]

It’s perfect actually because taking a shower is like a 2nd level task, whereas making an important phone call is a 5th. If you’re out of 5th level task slots, you can’t do that phone call. However you can expend higher level slots to take that shower if you’ve spent your lower task slots on dishes, eating, and getting dressed.

[lycaboros]

THANK YOU FOR REBLOGGING THIS FRIENDO BECAUSE THIS IS A PERFECT COMPARISON AND IT HAS RESTORED ME

[shwetanarayan-deactivated202504]

…suddenly spell slots make sense to me. ok all magic users in dnd are spoonies it’s official

[tea-and-codeine]

so hey guess who has been walking around with a torn rotator cuff for six months \o/

[tea-and-codeine]

wait i just realised that smiley is kinda inaccurate

\o_ -ow

 there we go

[tea-and-codeine]

so hey guess who has been walking around with a torn rotator cuff for six months \o/

[tea-and-codeine]

Text description: A screencap of two tweets from the RogueNASA twitter account, one showing a blue banner saying “OPEN ENROLLMENT FOR 2017 COVERAGE ENDS JANUARY 31. People who want to sign up for health plans in the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual marketplaces should enroll now.” The second tweet says “In addition to halting ads, they are halting email reminders to people who have started their applications. This is a big deal.”

Please enroll if you need to, and please pass this on!

[wickedguise]

Please help me find someone else with my rare conditon

My name is Valerie, I’m a teenager, and I’m chronically ill. 

I’ve been sick for a decade now, and unfortunately, I tend to get all the rare and ~special~ disorders. Because of this, I currently have doctors in nine cities spanning across five states. I battle six chronic conditions, and balancing them is a daily struggle, but I’ve managed. 

But my newest condition has turned my life upside down. It’s called Recurrent Subacute Thyroiditis (RSAT) and most doctors will never see a case of this in their lifetime. I luckily have found a doctor who has least seen a few cases of this before, but I am the youngest person she has ever seen with this condition. 

RSAT is an inflammation of the thyroid that causes overactivity, leading to high heart rates, trouble breathing, low blood pressure, dizziness, chest pains, insomnia, fatigue, hair loss, and muscle weakness. The overactivity lasts for about 2-3 months, and then the thyroid flips to inactivity, leading to lethargy, extreme fatigue, depression, low body temperature, and slow heart rates. The inactivity lasts for 2-3 months, making this a 4-6 month condition. I’m currently in the middle of my second episode, and my first episode was just two years ago.

I am terrified. This condition has caused me to be rushed to the ER twice. This condition has rendered me so dizzy and dropped my blood pressure so low that walking is a hazard and I am in a wheelchair. This condition has prevented me from attending school since the end of October. This condition can occur again, and there is no telling when or how often. 

I’ve scoured the web, posted in countless Facebook groups, analyzed research, and even scheduled a conference call with doctors in another country to try to get some answers. Not only is there no information on it, but I can’t find anyone else with it (and due to HIPPA laws, my doctor is not allowed to connect me with the other cases she has seen). I have support from my friends and family, but they cannot even begin to understand what this is like. 

I am alone in this right now, but I know the internet is a powerful place. I’ve seen other kids with rare conditions find support and/or answers, and I thought I might as well give it a shot. Please, please - even if you don’t have this condition, even if you don’t know me, please reblog this and spread this around. I just need to know that I’m not alone in this. Even finding one person who has this would make the world of a difference.

Thank you in advance. Those who know me best know I absolutely hate asking for help, but I can’t do this alone anymore. 

[marauders4evr]

Destroy the concept that you can’t be fat and disabled.

Destroy it.

Destroy the stigma that surrounds people who are overweight and in wheelchairs. 

Destroy the photos of people riding electric wheelchairs in Walmart with long, hateful, fatphobic captions about how they’re lazy and entitled.

And I’m looking at every single member of the disabled community because we (and I say we because even I’ve been guilty of this) are just as guilty of this as the abled community.

Which is really, really, really unfair.

Because disability advocacy is supposed to be about showing how we’re all equal despite the differences in our bodies (and/or minds).

And it’s shocking that so many people will talk about how beautiful people with disabilities are in one breath and then will use their next breath to fat-shame overweight people with disabilities.

I’ll put it bluntly: If your version of disability advocacy is screaming at an overweight person in a wheelchair because “they don’t really need that chair, they’re just fat” then you’re not a disability advocate. You’re just a bully.

[annieelainey]

You have the most mild form of EDS I've ever seen yet you milk it to death. I have pts diagnosed at 4/5 years old with their organs not functioning who need transplants,who are on TPN and GT feeds. They would kill to be where you are. It's pathetic.

Okay so…

1) You have no idea what my day to day is like or what internal issues I have, or all the health crises that I may experience, or the disabilities I have so don’t be so presumptuous just because I don’t share every single detail about my experience. Not cool.

2) Why are you comparing? That is so toxic to yourself and others.

I’ll tell you real quick: I struggle with that as well, I have several friends with EDS who can WALK and definitely MUCH longer than I can (1 min avg), who don’t need mobility aids to get around, who don’t pass out from standing up or have narcoleptic episodes, whp don’t have to stay in bed all the time or see the doctor all the time, who don’t have any issues cutting their own food or picking up an object over 2lbs with their hands, who are able to perform athletic feats, and I get envious sometimes, but I fight that and remind myself that we’re all different and no one ever really knows everything one is going through.

I would never tell them that they “milk” EDS or attempt to silence them when they talk about it, and I would never project my insecurities onto them because they appear to have better health than I do but the same diagnosis. EDS is on a wide spectrum and our pain and disability is not a competition.

3) “Milking it” you mean discussing it? A diagnosis it took me 26 years to get, 3 of them actively fighting for proper medical attention? With countless people still undiagnosed, seeking answers, seeking help, going through a similar journey that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Being that sick and no one believes you, no medicine, no aid, no help, teens have written to me about having to raise their own money for canes and wheelchair to then have their parents take it away from them, when they need it for mobility, it’s horrible.

Talking about it helps, creating awareness helps.

[fogblogger]

What the fucking hell kind of message is this, are you a child? Are you an actual child! I don’t understand how someone could be this rude, naive, and horrendous without being a child who legitimately doesn’t understand! Not to mention, who gave you title of judge of the suffering olympics???????? The disabled are not here for you to figure out who ACTUALLY has it worse, unless you literally are in each persons body and can make comparisons (if you can hmu I’d love to trade) like an actual comparison not just from the outside looking in, judging off of ten minute chunks of the best parts of the day. Amazing. Get a grip.

[lilelly-of-resiliency]

This anon refers to folks as pts (short for patients) so that seems to mean they are a health care provider which is ALL THE MORE HORRIFYING in my opinion.

Anon, get thee to some training on how to manage your attitudes towards patients and individuals with chronic illness diagnoses. You need to seriously re-evaluate your professionalism, your ethics, and your compassion for people. You are in a field of healers, advocates, and (supposed) experts with knowledge to benefit the lives of others, and your callous words are DOING HARM.

You are violating the hippocratic oath. You are an embarrassment to any health care profession. And on top of that, you are acting like a spiteful, oppressive person. STOP.

[bitterlikenettles]

Yes, who ever wrote this, if you are in health care, QUIT. Right. Now.

I am going to be nice and assume you are suffering from burn out and compassion fatigue, not that are you are just a bad person. Because if you are just awful, please just dissappear into the woods so humans don’t ha e to deal with you.

Get into some therapy. There is help for providers that get this messed up from the job.

Find a relaxing hobby.

Get a new job that has nothing to do with medicine.

Stop talking to sick people. You have lost your ability to be rational and useful that that way.

Stay off the Internet for awhile.

[tea-and-codeine]

“There are four-year-olds who need organ transplants, therefore you’re not really disabled.” Yeah, it doesn’t work like that. (After all, there are BABIES who DIE. Do we then get to say the four-year-old isn’t sick, because they are not the youngest and sickest person in the world?) 

Also, it doesn’t sound as if anon actually understands EDS very well? EDS-III is not really a ‘milder’ form of vascular EDS; it’s a different variation which tends to be far less life threatening but nonetheless can and does cause excruciating pain. The pain, I am afraid, doesn’t vanish in a cloud of sparkles just because Other People Have It Worse You Know.

to my fellow cripples, it is ok to talk about your pain and your mobility problems and how they affect your life. it does not matter in the slightest if there are people who ~wish they could be where you are~. talk all you need to.

edit: the anon in question actually apologised and said they were rethinking how they see these things, which is great! but i’m going to leave this post up bc it’s important to me to remind people that it’s always ok to talk about their pain and disability even if they “don’t have it that bad”.

[tea-and-codeine]

mum: oh, your cousin hurt her back too

me: oh no, what happened

mum: she sneezed

[tea-and-codeine]

a wild, out-there, radical idea: what if we supported and protected disabled people when they can’t do things instead of blaming them 

[tonedowntimaeus]

Hey so, I’m really into the flower language pins I did and plan on doing some more. Right now I’m thinking about gender/sexuality ones so here’s a poll to choose which ones I should do first! (I’m also gonna do some Mad Pride/neurodiversity pins sometime too)

>>POLL<<

[tea-and-codeine]

hey, so a friend is making awesome antifascism/anti-capitalism/identity pins with flower language stuff. go take a look maybe?

[theforrestpeople]

David Cameron- Taking lives since 2010.

[lancrebitch]

Fuck the Tories, fuck them fuck them fuck them

[ultralaser]

jesus

[lisaquestions]

For every name and face in this list there are so many others alongside them whom we haven’t heard about.

ATOS is a human rights violation.

[tea-and-codeine]

just reblogging this for anyone who thinks ‘trying to kill us’ is exaggerating

i mean sure maybe that isn’t the direct aim of all this but they sure as fuck don’t seem to care if it happens anyway

[tonedowntimaeus]

#election #brexit #ableism #murder dont reblog thanks

I really want to see more inclusion of disabled people in the discussions being had because both after the election and Brexit there was and is total silence unless disabled people fucking shout endlessly until someone notices. In the UK, the government is deadset on killing as many disabled people as possible and it’s literally so bad that the UN (source) is like “UK maybe fucking chill.” 

Instead of just saying things like “you need to GET OUT THERE AND MARCH” talk about things disabled people can actually do. Don’t ignore disabled people when we say we cannot just DO things like that. Actually mention disabled people for more than just brownie points. Disability cuts are a HUGE problem in the UK, and it’s not exactly great in the US (can’t attest to this personally bc I don’t receive benefits) either and I can only see it getting worse with the new government lineup. 

[tea-and-codeine]

this is important

we are important

and people are p much literally trying to kill us

[tea-and-codeine]

ok, so i think this is what i want to do, even in a small tiny way if i can: i want to figure out a way for disabled people to reach each other and support each other. to make some kind of network and way of contacting each other so we can help each other survive. so that if someone needs a safe place to sleep for a few nights and someone else has a couch available, they can find each other. if you’re starving and another person has a little spare money this week, they can send you a pizza. if you’re mentally ill or learning disabled or neurodivergent and can’t deal with filling in forms and applications for benefits, maybe a physically-disabled person with good language skills can help you out. if you’re having a huge-ass panic attack and need someone to talk with you and help you calm down and watch a movie with you or something, i want to help you find that. hell, if you’re physically disabled and not well enough to, idk, take your trash out this week and someone lives close enough who can take care of it for you, maybe that can be a thing too.

hell, tiny things, stupid things. i will fucking buy minecraft for someone to get them through a shitty week. i don’t know. even if all i manage to do is like, one nice thing for one person, that’s more than nothing.

i do not know how to do this. i have absolutely no idea what creating a network involves or how to start it or make it happen in any way and maybe it’s not something i even can do, but i do know that i want disabled people to help each other and take care of each other in the face of all this terrible bullshit. let’s make it as difficult as we possibly can for the fuckers to kill us.

[tea-and-codeine]

i am not giving up on this. i am going to do Something Helpful

going to start by throwing together a blog/community. anyone got any name suggestions?

[tea-and-codeine]

ok, so i think this is what i want to do, even in a small tiny way if i can: i want to figure out a way for disabled people to reach each other and support each other. to make some kind of network and way of contacting each other so we can help each other survive. so that if someone needs a safe place to sleep for a few nights and someone else has a couch available, they can find each other. if you’re starving and another person has a little spare money this week, they can send you a pizza. if you’re mentally ill or learning disabled or neurodivergent and can’t deal with filling in forms and applications for benefits, maybe a physically-disabled person with good language skills can help you out. if you’re having a huge-ass panic attack and need someone to talk with you and help you calm down and watch a movie with you or something, i want to help you find that. hell, if you’re physically disabled and not well enough to, idk, take your trash out this week and someone lives close enough who can take care of it for you, maybe that can be a thing too.

hell, tiny things, stupid things. i will fucking buy minecraft for someone to get them through a shitty week. i don’t know. even if all i manage to do is like, one nice thing for one person, that’s more than nothing.

i do not know how to do this. i have absolutely no idea what creating a network involves or how to start it or make it happen in any way and maybe it’s not something i even can do, but i do know that i want disabled people to help each other and take care of each other in the face of all this terrible bullshit. let’s make it as difficult as we possibly can for the fuckers to kill us.