Does anybody have contact info for Strega? Or is in touch with her? I think she'd like to know.

Argh...messing around online trying to find a way back into the stuff I was doing before this happened, and...you know how we say we have, like, ten conversations? That is officially seven more than the disability rights movement has. They are playing the Name Game again, and sadly, not the silly song with "bonanna-fo-fana" in it That would be funny at least. "Let's do Gimpy!" No, I mean, for the millionth time, parsing the difference between "disabled person" and "person with a disability" Which I really used to care about, but I'm older now, and College!Me really underestimated the human race's utility at making up insults, and did I mention that the topic comes up a lot? I have run out of fucks to give for that conversation, whether it's my turn or not. I'm tempted to go in there and say "Pick one or I'm calling us all Numbnuts, even though half of us don't have any."

I'll call Strega.

I had therapy today. So that was good.

I cried a lot. Will came over and was here, he's here now. I'm on my Chromebook, in bed, Will's lying beside me and the cat is lying in my lap and I'm reading the board. It's as close to having you guys in person.

I like Zen's idea for ita's law. I've been having vegenence fantasies similiar to that, only involving a lot more pain to ita's doctors. I want to hunt them down (and, actually, every medical professional who didnt't treat her with the dignity and respect she deserved), break their elbows and wrists, and knees, and ankles and dislocate their shoulders and while they are lying on the floor writhing in pain tell them. "You can't get up and walk! But you look fine to me, What's your pain level? A 10? I don't believe you." and toss a bottle of tylenol on the floor a few feet away and tell them "you're drug seeking, we don't treat drug seekers here. Go get the bottle and open it your own damnself. If you can't maybe then I might believe you aren't med seeking." But I'd never let them have the bottle.

I still have a lot of anger.

Betsy I'm glad your husband and son don't have migraines any more.

Sean, it's okay to be scared about surgery. I'm usually okay about surgery but when I had my tubal ligation I got really upset and my blood pressure spiked to the point they were considering putting it off. I wasn't upset about my decision but it suddenly got kinda scary. We have your back and don't be afraid to talk about being afraid or feel like you are wrong to have fears. We're always be here for you.

Sean, I don't blame you. Of course, a lot of the stuff doctors wanted to do to me is more like to see what would happen(We didn't do any of it)

Surgery and recovery ~ma, Sean, and for your bonus mom, too, Kiba.

It's good to see all of you here again! I'd list everyone but I'd probably mess up and leave someone out, so... alla y'all. We missed you. I've missed you.

Betsy, that's such great news about your husband and son!

Cannot concentrate on work. Luckily for my job life, I got the work I really needed to pay attention to done yesterday morning before I saw the news. Now all I have to do this week is work I can do on autopilot.

I wish I had gone to more of the F2Fs. I wish I'd ever met ita F2F even once.

Hubby always laughed that he didn't have the Marijuana box checked on the "drugs in bloodstream" test. I told him it wasn't Bingo.

Okay, that's funny, though.

If you guys think it's worth doing, I'll do it. I'll write up a draft petition of ita's Law this weekend and post it for comments.

oh god I've committed to Doing Something. cue anxiety

I will sign the heck out of an ita's Law petition.

~ma for Sean and Kiba's mom too

Coincidentally, I just registered Casper for her first Fan Event. She's buying Marissa Meyer's new book Fairest and getting it signed by the author, after a dress-up party at the bookstore. She is planning to dress as "Cress when her hair was short." It's been fanart vs. homework for days and the event's not until the 31st, so it's going to get wors

Aww! So cute!

I made it through a couple of ridiculous Uber rides (horrible GPS) and my immediate work day, and made it through security sans ID and then realized I can't buy a drink. Ugh. Though I was worried that is show up this morning and the people I was supposed to meet with (who hadn't ever emailed me back) would not be there. (they were, it went fine)

I'm so glad to hear Betsy that your husband and son are doing well!!

So much this. My mother's brain tumors were not caught because her doctor wrote off her increased pain as drug seeking and cut back her migraine meds.

Holy crap that's awful!!

oh god I've committed to Doing Something

You followed your lovely words which were COMMed yesterday. Go you.

[Edit: Allyson, thanks.]

So pleased to hear your news, Betsy. So good for your husband and Will.

It's Lev Grossman's The Magician King for me. I re-read it just a couple months ago and my heart was so full of Bronzers, Buffistas, and Bronzistas that it just about wrecked me. That amazing feeling of belonging and rightness, the miracle of meeting these friends in person finally.

Me too, Kiba! In fact, I'm re-reading it right now.

My thought today about: ita's Odyssey of Pain Management was to collect all of her posts that she made before during and after ER visits that chronicled the shitty nurses and the great ones, the asshole doctors and kind ones. How desperate and scared she was. How arduous and stressful it was. Just collect it as a first person journal, and then put her picture on the front, put a little intro on it, and send it to the Emergency Rooms that she attended in Southern California. So they knew what it was like for her. It's a perfect, horrible account of the failure of the medical system. In her own words.

Anyway, that was my thought. If I was the head of the ER and I got a book like that, I'd have to think about procedures a bit. How the irregularity of application, the refusal to look into a pain management file, the racist presumptions, the valuation of limiting drug use over providing pain relief are cruel and so frequently unnecessary.