junø @juno@pixie.town

Healthcare workers - please don’t call a patient “sweetie” “baby” “cutie” or any similar adjective. It’s inappropriate.

Treat female presenting patients the same way you would treat male ones.

If you’re concerned about abuse - ask in private AFTER patient is stabilized.

recently shared an example of a nurse calling me “sweetie” and asking if I was fighting with my boyfriend.

I had lost consciousness, had a heart rate of 180 and NO signs of abuse. I was also alone.

I needed an immediate EKG & stabilization

It was inappropriate and made me question the quality of care I would receive.

That said - HCWs play a vital role in protecting victims of abuse.

I have absolutely no issue with asking a patient if they’re being hurt, in danger etc.

believe it should be after emergent issue has been treated - and you shouldn’t use patronizing language while doing it.

The nurse treating me wasn’t concerned about abuse. She was downplaying my condition & gaslighting me.

Something disabled patients deal with too often.

The same goes for patients requesting their HCWs mask (or showing up in a mask themselves).

Don’t say “aww are you scared about Covid? Anxious about getting sick?”

Just put on a mask. It won’t harm you. It shows you understand the science & value patient safety.

I’m fed up with the ableist, misogynistic and patriarchal attitudes we have to deal with to access life saving care.

I will continue to share these stories in the hopes they help people think differently about how they treat patients. We deserve better.

For more on the misogynistic and patriarchal attitudes I’ve faced trying to access healthcare - I wrote two articles about my reproductive struggles. From being told pregnancy would likely kill me but I “might meet a man who wants kids”… to needing an emergency hysterectomy and having a post operative complication ignored until a MAN demanded they run tests. It’s bleak … but these aren’t isolated incidents. Ask almost any woman and she will have stories of her own.

“You might meet a man who wants kids” article: https://www.disabledginger.com/p/pregnancy-will-likely-kill-you-but

Post hysterectomy complication article: https://www.disabledginger.com/p/my-most-dangerous-er-experience-and?utm_campaign=post

#CovidIsAirborne #CovidCautious #CovidIsNotOver #CleanAir #WearaMask #Disability #LongCovid #Ableism #Denial #CleanAir #Pandemic #PublicHealth #InfectionControl #Eugenics #SafeHealthcare #N95 #Respirators #MasksWork #MaskUp #Spoonie #Discrimination #Dysautonomia #mecfs #pots #mcas #communitycare #wearamask #chronicillness #keepmasksinhealthcare #misogyny #patriarchy #womenshealth #reproductivehealth #fuckthepatriarchy

Digital artist here! Asking for commissions, if you could boost that would be greatly appreciated. Photos included for a few examples.. I am open to drawing many things whether realistic or cartoonish, original characters, even some abstract pieces. Funds raised from custom art commissions go towards keeping my partner @magicalgrrrl, our two cats, and I sheltered and fed.

https://ko-fi.com/lukeorion/commissions

#CommissionsOpen #DisabledArtist #ActuallyAutistic #DigitalArt

Bonus round!

THE LORD OF THE FLIES

This novel featured a group of kids, alone on an island after a plane crash, regressing into conflict and violence, and is often named as a cautionary tale of how things will immediately fall apart when there is no law and order.

Unfortunately, that story is entirely made-up nonsense. A similar incident actually happened in 1966, where a couple of kids from (near) Tonga stranded on the island 'Ata, only being rescued 15 months later.

Contrary to the story in Lord of the Flies, they successfully governed themselves, developed ways to resolve conflicts among themselves, kept themselves healthy even despite injury, and survived the experience.

Let's do a round-up of a couple!

THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA

The burning down of this library is often seen as one of the biggest losses of culture in history. In reality, it seems that the library mostly stored copies of works, and while big, it stored very few *unique* things - therefore, not much was actually lost.

THE BYSTANDER EFFECT

The claim is that when there are many bystanders of an incident, none will take responsibility. This is based on the murder of Kitty Genovese, where it was claimed that there were many witnesses, but none of them did anything.

That's false - in fact, the amount of witnesses was limited due to the location, and multiple people alerted the police, but the police failed to respond in a timely manner. More recently, research into the bystander effect suggests that the entire theory is wrong - people *do* consistently come to the aid of others.

THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT

Claimed to 'prove' that given power, people will turn malicious and start abusing others. In reality, the experiment was fraudulent, and proved no such thing - the guard in the experiment were actively *encouraged* by the researcher to be abusive.

THE BROKEN WINDOW THEORY

This is often seen as some sort of 'scientifically proven fact' about human behaviour; if you leave vandalism or other "anti-social" behaviour untreated, it will invite more of it.

In reality, this was just made up by a cop in New York, never proven, and used as a justification for violent and oppressive policing tactics. There's no evidence that this is true, or ever was.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS

This theory claims that when a group of individuals are given access to a common shared resource, they will each act selfishly and collectively exhaust the resource, whereas it would've been fine if one party controlled access. Usually reference over-grazing.

In reality, this concept (in its current form) comes from a thought experiment where it was just *assumed* to be true, rather than from actual research; and instead there is a long history of shared resources being effectively collectively managed without giving any one party total control over access or distribution.

This doesn't stop authoritarians from using the tragedy of the commons as a justification for their accumulation of power; claiming that otherwise, the resources would be exhausted.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

This theory claims that victims of crime and/or abuse will develop an irrational attachment to the perpetrator, implying that they can no longer be trusted to have agency in determining how to deal with the situation.

In reality, rather than being based in rigorous research, this concept was coined by a criminologist based on a single bank robbery in (as the name implies) Stockholm.

Crucially, the victims were quite clear about the reason for their trust towards the robbers; the police were acting irresponsibly in this incident, endangering people unnecessarily, and therefore the robbers were the more rational and less dangerous party in the conflict. Not quite the 'irrational attachment' that's so often claimed...

something about the pharmacists saying "bless you" to each other and sneezing without masks during a respiratory virus pandemic really screams medieval

When you’re allergic to everything and nothing all at once…. You may have MCAS.

Suddenly allergic to alcohol? Certain foods making you sick? Unexplained swelling and rashes? You may have MCAS.

Did you know you can experience anaphylaxis without ever having throat or facial swelling? I certainly didn’t! My first episode of anaphylaxis started in my gut and my heart - and I genuinely thought I had the flu.

I suffered for two days with unrelenting nausea and diarrhea, tachycardia, chest pain, shortness of breath and sweating. I lay in my bed desperately trying to force fluids down - but my throat was sore and swallowing had become difficult.

I finally relented and went to the ER - largely due to dehydration. Imagine my shock when the triage nurse took one look at my throat, stabbed me with Epi and whisked me into a code room.

I genuinely had no idea I was experiencing anaphylaxis. The throat issues felt just like strep and/or a bad flu. It happened so slowly that I didn’t even realize.

I wrote this article as a primer into the wild world of mast cell disease. These cells are everywhere in your body - contain over 200 mediators and can wreak havoc in a million different ways.

I hope it will help people better understand the condition - and I plan to write two more pieces which will explore in greater detail how to get diagnosed, how to treat it and (perhaps most importantly) how to learn to live with the constant threat of anaphylaxis.

https://www.disabledginger.com/p/when-youre-allergic-to-everything

#CovidIsAirborne #CovidCautious #CovidIsNotOver #CleanAir #WearaMask #Disability #LongCovid #Ableism #Denial #CleanAir #Pandemic #PublicHealth #InfectionControl #Eugenics #SafeHealthcare #N95 #Respirators #MasksWork #MaskUp #Spoonie #Discrimination #Dysautonomia #mecfs #pots #mcas #communitycare #wearamask #chronicillness #keepmasksinhealthcare #mastcells

I’m probably going to make myself unpopular with some people if i say this but we need to find a language of power, oppression and violence for the enforcement of circadian rhythm and the constant, entirely normalised torture enacted on those whose bodies cannot conform.

And I don’t think I am exaggarating when I say “torture”. Sleep deprivation is widely considered a form of torture, even though legal definitions are often lacking.

I mean like sure. Okay. Maybe it’s not torture to have to get up after 3 hours of sleep every day for a job because theoretically you have the freedom to switch jobs. Maybe it’s not torture to be woken up by construction noise after 1-4 hours of sleep 50% of the time, and be kept awake by similar noise the rest of the day, because theoretically you have the freedom to move.

But how do people with a late or non-24 circadian rhythm fare when they’re in a hospital? Care home? Prison? Places they can’t leave? How do children and teenagers with such circadian rhythms fare in countries where showing up to school at 8:00 at the latest is mandatory and enforced by police unless people comply?

Even if you’re lucky enough not to be in any of these situations, it is relentness. And we do not have the language, or even the social concepts, to talk about this properly.

If someone has an upstairs neighbour that wakes them at 2 a.m. every night and keeps going with the noise until mid-morning, this is considered outrageous, unfair, and while it’s usually very difficult to prove and enforce, it’s also illegal.

But if someone has an upstairs neighbour that wakes them at 9 a.m. every morning and keeps going with the noise until afternoon, this is… maybe going to draw a sad fatigued smile from other people with a non-normative circadian rhythm because we all know there’s nothing we can do, while everyone else will shrug and imagine we could just go to bed earlier. But morning people’s 2 a.m. is my 8 a.m. and this is not something I can change.

Even medical research leaves us completely alone. Not only is circadian variaton pathologized, but the research is generally just bad. I’ve never seen research on circadian differences that took into account the social factors or even considered the potential impacts of living in a society that’s hell-bent on not letting you get a restful sleep, at all, ever.

Instead, we get tautologies and popular knowledge such as “Before midnight is the most restful part of sleep, even for night owls!” which to those who know sounds a lot like “Straightening your spine until your chin is at least 165 cm above the ground is good for your back, even for short people!”

okay so, I've got my goals covered an my plans are in motion and even tho I've got some to spare, I've set them aside because I could still be kicked out any day. (haha, fun /s).

but this is still my birthday month and... I haven't really gotten me anything besides something I really really needed (like walking shoes... and walking shoes again...) forever. so I'll leave my links up this month and I'll use anything I get to get me something nice for my birthday!

links:

ko-fi - accepts paypal and stripe.
stripe (USD) - (for those that prefer not using paypal)

hashtags

#mutualAid #transCrowdfund #mutualAidRequest #blackMutualAid #boostPlease
@mutualaid

Die Redewendung "man freut sich tierisch" impliziert, dass es von der Gesellschaft als unmenschlich angesehen wird sich sehr zu freuen

Hey peeps who do make their own DIY injectables.

if anyone has done a thin-layer chromatography of a lab- or human tested sample of pure (un-mixed) Estradiol Enanthate or could supply me with a small known sample to make one myself, please hit me up.

Sexuality and gender identity are hard to figure out, Blahaj is soft to cuddle.

remember: The Closet isn’t privilege, passing isn’t acceptance, assimilation isn’t safety

every single one of us in trans fedi is traumatized by our experiences of having every moment of our lives turned into a battle for our own existence, and the way that collective trauma plays out within our queer communities is an age-old story, one that our elders solved during the AIDS crisis and we need to learn from.

there is so much more we can all be doing for each other to help ourselves and each other thrive and to help our community thrive. every single one of you needs to read this treatise by the Jane Addams Collective.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-jane-addams-collective-mutual-aid-trauma-and-resiliency