My text messages tend to be more unhinged than what I would ever reveal in person. I feel safe behind text only then; the lack of context, voice tenure, and attitude help me separate the me that thinks those things, and the me that doesn’t mean them.
My favourite one this week was to my Mom, and read, “I’ll have my last will and testament for dinner”, in direct response to her question of (you guessed it) dinner content. TL;DR chronic pain sucks. ♥
On a scale of one to zero? The four Mr. 8 claims he is
December 18th, 2021
December 18th, 2021
It’s Winter in the ~Western part of the world, it’s hot as shit in December in Florida and I am n o t o k a y with that, and E.R. visits continue to suck. WELCOME TO LIFE WORLD! After a grueling process of trying to find where to report a medical professional — grand spoiler alert: there is technically no place to do this electronically — I managed to find a contact form, where I tried to submit the following*:
* Please note this was done while I was still very sick and out of it, and also on heavy pain medication; I did not realise how truly articulate I can be when I am sick and out of it, but damn dude. I will now pat myself on the back for that one, and also try hard not to laugh that I thought to save this shit upon it NOT working and promptly passed out right after, apparently knowing not-sick me would take care of it (she fucking did).
I would like to report a doctor that I was treated by, as well as a CPA. The doctor in question is either Jenny Lin or Jenny Lim, and I would like to report her on the following basis: verbal harassment, inaccurate physical treatment, as well as several instances of lack of medical procedure and protocol (i.e. urine sampling, blood testing, breath treatment, reflex test). A CPA, after retrieving me from laying down on the waiting room floor, then told me I could not “lay down or relax, this isn’t a hotel room”. She also kept telling me, “We’ll pump you with fluids and you’ll feel better”, even when I kept telling her that was not what I wanted. The doctor performed a physical assessment on my upper torso, but reprimanded me for a curse word I was not really cognitively aware I said. (I had my mother with me to help me communicate.) After that, she would not let me tell her when something hurt, instead looking at my face instead of listening to me. She ignored my insistence it wasn’t my normal stomach problems. (Again, without any testing.) Last but not least, the doctor asked me unprompted, “do you smoke marjuana?”, and when I told her yes, she then told me that was a leading cause of GI issues, which is scientifically false, as well incredibly inappropriate, given she also kept telling me, “E.R. doctors can only treat actual emergencies”.
There is so much to unpack here. It’s not the worst I’ve ever had — fuck, it’s ranked at 4 — but it was the one to make me breakdown, which hurts the most. I’m pretty fucking strong when it comes to being confronted about most things: I am easily corrected, I don’t get my feelings hurt easily, I am not prone to defending myself (particularly if I know I’ve done something wrong, or it looked like that from the other party). To be broken down by what I know is another run-of-the-mill emergency care doctor isn’t just heartbreaking for me, it’s also hard to get up from. I don’t, still to this very day, look down on emergency care workers, but I know which ones care and which ones don’t, and I seem to almost always come across the latter.
I rated her a 4, not because I don’t think the shit she said or did is okay, but because she immediately showed what a moron she truly is by that marijuana comment. Regardless of her tenure with her work, she’s not keeping up and/or reading about the things she goes out of her way to discuss, apparently, but she clearly is not keeping up with the basic ground work. Knowing what doctors think work for patients, and what the patients are telling these same doctors actually work, are to very different things that every single doctor should know.
She made me cry, yes. She continued the never-ending cycle of blaming the patient, yes. But she is so inept at something that is literally her career, and I’d take any night of my pain over being bad at something that I chose to do and made a career out of.
FBF: Los últimos ocho años
March 10th, 2018
March 10th, 2018
I haven’t regularly blogged in eight years, and while I’ve talked about a lot of the things listed below, you’d have to browse my Tumblr, Twitter, and probably my e-mails with Chris to piece all of these together. AGGRESSIVE DRUM-ROLL: a FBF! I decided to stick to seven things, because I’m long-winded as is, and literally nobody needs to read eight things about me; I’m not that fucking interesting.
SMALL NOTE: I always double check my Spanish, and was writing “siete”, and couldn’t fucking figure out why my dictionary was translating that as “seven” instead of “eight”. Always check your grammar, and always check for reciting numbers in your head in the wrong order.
1.) My Dad died
I’ve blogged about this occurrence several times, but one of the reasons I stopped blogging was my Dad’s cancer treatment. While I was coding the Listing Admin 2.2 script, I found out my Dad has cancer. While I was coding it’s follow-up (2.3), I found out his chemotherapy wasn’t working. We moved down south to Gainesville (in Florida), which was literally THE MOST BORING CITY ON THE PLANET, where he died of complications due to a bone-marrow transplant.
I will probably never go back to Gainesville. Not because it’s where my Dad died — I find that part hilarious, because one of the things he told my Mom before we moved there was, “don’t let me die in fucking Gainesville” — but because I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it was boring. Like claws your eyes out boring; there is no water except in hotel pools, and there’s no curricular activity that doesn’t include basketball or football.
2.) Health problems
I almost listed all of my health problems up there to be dick, but I’m trying to keep this organised. My OCD won out over a being a shithead, you’re welcome.
I was 21 when my Dad was undergoing chemo in 2010, and during that year, I suffered from what I would later found out to be “attacks”. In 2012, I was diagnosed with two stomach disorders (neither of which are related to each other) and a spine disorder/injury. I’ve struggled with mental health my entire life (PTSD, social anxiety disorder, major depressive order, probably other shit) and I thought I was okay with it. Most days I am, actually. But when you add in chronic pain, you begin to question whether you can handle anything at all.
For the most part I’m functional — I work full time, and I’m fairly active — but most people don’t live with me/have to deal with me when I’m in pain or anxious, or both.
3.) I have a niece!
That title is about 90% more excited than I am right now, but I prefer babies over kids any day. My closest sibling, Hannah, had her in 2013, and while I would have preferred she waited, I’m glad she didn’t for this damn little girl. Here’s a picture of her when she was 2, and not prone to talking to herself in my vanity mirror, or telling me about a day I care nothing about.
4.) I was a nanny for a two years; now I’m not
From 2013 to 2015, I was a nanny to a beautiful little girl. I really loved being a nanny, and the free time it afforded me was pretty priceless. It also paid terrible, and towards the end, I was really unhappy. I’m kind of still unhappy — is anyone who works at a restaurant truly happy? — but I make more money, filing taxes isn’t as hard, and I have health insurance. Do I want to learn different cuisines, like I outlined in my In Ten Years post? No the fuck I don’t, but at least I learned that I don’t.
5.) I came out (twice)
I actually came out to my Mom when I was 19, but her and I had this unspoken oath to never really talk about it, because I was also crying in the middle of the kitchen at the time. I simply asked her (while crying) if she was okay with it, and she said, “yes” and “please stop crying” and “is that what this is about”. I never really thought too hard about the gender of any partner, but when you don’t have any desire to have one, you kind of forget to think about what kind of partner would interest you.
I don’t want to be the asshole who ignores how hard it is for other people, or how much people struggle with that part of themselves — it hasn’t exactly been easy for me — but I also don’t talk about whole parts of my life. Being bisexual is just a thing I am, not my entire personality.
6.) I lost my Dad’s cat and my best friend in a 4 month period
I’ve blogged about losing my friend but I also lost an animal in November 2017. My house is full of them, it’s hard to keep up with them. I’m close to all of them, because animals get me in a way humans don’t; all I want is to be left alone unless I’m crying, and my animals get that. Tanque was my Dad’s cat, and losing him hurt so much, because for my family, it felt like losing another piece of my Dad.
7.) “Who am I?”
…was not actually a question I asked myself, but the overall feeling was something I had a hard time dealing with. For so many years, I’ve known myself as Tess. Tess likes a lot of things — I’ve been told too many things — and Tess doesn’t struggle in quite the same way. I spent so long locked up in my own head, that as cliche was this is definitely going to sound, I didn’t know who Austin was.
Turns out Austin is kind of a dick, but when you deal with people on a regular basis, you kind of have to be. I’ve also had my ass handed to me so many times, and I needed that. I needed to know what I can and can’t deal with, what my limits are. I have also learned: how many times you can irritate a co-worker (depends on the co-worker, but usually about a solid hour before a meltdown), how to handle confrontations when you’re unable to walk away, when it’s appropriate to cry in a walk-in (before opening hours), and how many lost hours of sleep you can work efficiently on (4 a night for a week).