"into your deepest secret inside of your bone, where not even you have ever dared to tread" (pretty good description of how i feel about medical things going into my body)
@MirandaJuly worst part is that mom thought she did me a favor since now "we don't have to worry about epilepsy." Who is this "WE" mom you got a mouse in your pocket?!
Glad to be of service, and also that I didn't go (too) overboard. As you can tell from my toilet tank water episode I tend to take things a bit far...
And apologies to the Empire and Grand Moff Tarkin, I should have called it an Enhanced Interrogation Droid.
"The way more upsetting part of getting dental work done is the sounds and smells of your teeth being drilled and crunched or whatever--the shots for me don't seem like the bad part. "
SO TRUE
I can deal with the shots, but the feeling of getting my wisdom teeth yanked/shattered out of my skull was the worst thing I've ever felt.
I need an epidural story. Anyone? As you can imagine, Calvin was a drug-free birth because there was NO WAY IN HELL anyone was getting near my spine with a GIANT FUCKING NEEDLE.
I think I might be the only other UHX user with first-hand birth experience... mo? Drug free here as well. An epidural or getting cut-up (c-section or episiotomy) were the things I wanted to avoid most in the entire world. They did give me an i.v. immediately (I had to be induced) and the nurse got blood everywhere in the process, I felt that needle rubbing against my wrist bone for all 27 hours of labor and there was often a burning sensation because of the saline solution. It left a very visible hole in my skin and a month later I still have traces of it.
Other story: When I was eighteen I got my wisdom teeth pulled out and because my veins are always so hard for specialists to find, the dentist ended up injectind the drugs in some muscle tissue so by the time they started pulling my teeth out I COULD FEEL EVERYTHING. At the time I was really focused on appearing tough, so I held onto the dentist chair as I felt every single vibration, every single tool. I had headphones on and a discman and was listening to Supergrass. I will always associate that band with feeling of four of my teeth being pulled out of me.
Later on as I walked home the drugs finally kicked in and I drooled dark pink spit onto my old boyfriend's favorite t-shirt (a white t-shirt with an ironic message, it was 1999 after all).
The weird thing about epidurals is that the people around me who are all like "OMG, no acpuncture for me, I HATE NEEDLES!" are the same ones going into childbirth saying "Yes, all the drugs, please!". I guess it is just a general aversion to pain and they have to prioritize: feeling a baby with a huge head coming out of you VS. getting a big needle in your back. The animal in me wants to feel the baby come out.
In high school I was fucking around and got punched in the stomach and it ruptured my spleen. I didn’t know it until hours later when I was writhing in pain at my friends house. My mom took me to the ER and the ER nurse had a hell of a time putting in the IV. She kept missing, so many times. As has been mentioned, those needles are a huge gauge not like a normal shot needle. They hurt. Eventually my mom, who was a trauma nurse, put in my IV.
I was hospitalized for a week after that. Every time I got a new IV put in people would tell me how rad and easy my veins are, so easy to find and get needles in. Some made jokes about illicit drug use.
I still have two little white dot scars on my arm from those IVs.
So funny same thing happened to me on a cruise ship when I was a little kid but just for a blood draw. Cruise nurse stuck me a half-dozen times before my mom pulled a Nick Burns, the company's computer guy, and said "MOVE" and did it first try. ("There. Was that so hard?")
EDIT: Not to brag but I have AWESOME veins, many nurses/techs have actually said "oh, well this will be easy..."
The kind of thing that happened to Jerome Kersey is pretty much my biggest fear. Just walking along, reasonably healthy and then BAM dead. Aneurysms are the scariest thing to happen or to receive as a word in a spelling bee. I think he just had a blood clot in his leg.
that's so funny because I truly hope to drop instantly dead by surprise. So much better than the vast majority of potential deaths out there.
it's bad for those left behind, if you are youngish (see a few New Yorkers ago, the devastating story by the poet whose husband dropped dead randomly while running on the treadmill), but for the dead person themselves I think it's ideal
Yeah, I guess so, I'm just sorta a fan of and attached to being alive, and would ideally like a chance to say goodbye to the people I love and whom care about me even if it kinda sucks for me. I also think I hate leaving things unfinished and if I died tomorrow I will never finish season 1 of Silicon Valley.
Also, I am pretty scared that I will be one of those left behind people and that someone I love will just randomly die at any moment from something like that. It takes me, I think, much longer than most to recover emotionally from that stuff. Sends me into a crazy existential tailspin.
I read this crazy book about the history of cultural attitudes toward death in the West, fro the medieval period through the 19th century. The guy says that in the medieval period the WORST death was a sudden one, because it meant that God was angry with you. The best death was to basically lie suffering in bed for months. People looked forward to it. If you fell off a cliff randomly and died everyone in your town was suspicious--sometimes they'd even fine your remaining family!!!!!! Because it meant somebody fucked up!
I think the sudden death is considered preferable by those who no longer believe in God/the afterlife. If you knew you were going to heaven--or if you were concerned about making sure you went to heaven--the slow death would be better.
Having had my father and brother die suddenly/unexpectedly, I think I'd like to have time to acknowledge and sit with the reality of my own death before I go. It's a fundamental part of our existence and I want to participate in that experience rather than have sudden curtains. Sudden is such a leaden word in the mouth.
But, maybe a sudden death is best if it's timely. Can't know.
timing is everything, so true. I like what ekjiram says about participating in such a tremendous human experience.
I think like SK I am traumatized about the lingering death after watching my grandparents live 10 years longer than they should have. It was excruciating, for everyone, including them, and was just a heinous experience with zero positives. So now I just have this sense of wishing everyone the blessing of dropping dead, without having to deal with the existential angst, the shitting your pants, the idea that everyone you love is praying for you to die--what could be worse than that? But yeah, if someone is younger, maybe lingering awhile is nice? I don't know. I can't really imagine either, for a younger person, it's too sad. Lingering deaths can be so extreme and hideous; but sudden deaths are so shocking and appalling, it's true.
ugh life! what a racket
did everyone read Oliver Sacks's beautiful farewell letter to the world? I cried. This is a good example of how a slower death might be a good thing, if you get to write something like this. But he is an angel on this earth
I have experienced both kinds of death. They are all shitty. I have also experienced the weird essentially death but not actual death of someone with severe brain injury waking up and basically having to start over as a person. Having to face death in it's various forms is sorta one of those weird beauty/horrors of life. It does open you up to a less ego heavy perspective and existence or something. I love the thestrals and Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter for their illustration of this.
I have a hard time not turning any conversation towards space, death, or basketball. Two out of three!
There are so many ways to leave this world, sad or peaceful or tragic or gruesome or light. Maybe it'd be good to work at finding peace with the knowledge that we might not have much influence over it. I can say I think I want some kind of presence of mind through that experience, but how much hubris does it take to believe you know what's up about death!? Probably a lot. Maybe some people are better at considering mortality all the time and don't really need it to be imminent to come to grips with that part of life. It's all so mysterious to me.
I hate to distract us all from end times musings, but I'm still stuck on needles.
YT, is this the procedure you had? If so, I am pretty familiar with that huge-ass needle, because I've been watching a lot of epidural and spinal tap (h/t to FTP) videos, and it's the same one. Intense.
I am afraid of my house burning down when I am gone. If I am around the corner buying coffee and I hear a siren, I immediately rush to the conclusion that I have left the stove on or something and my house is in flames. Is this a phobia? Or just a neurosis?
that skydiving instructor is really good at his job!!!!!! I don't get how they can go faster/slower/change direction. It's fucking incredible when dude catches up with seizing dude and yanks that cord. Fuck! My heart is pounding
I'm always worried about the house burning down. I want to invent a dog/cat security door that is connected to the smoke alarm, if that's not already a thing.
Comments
"into your deepest secret inside of your bone, where not even you have ever dared to tread"
(pretty good description of how i feel about medical things going into my body)
Glad to be of service, and also that I didn't go (too) overboard. As you can tell from my toilet tank water episode I tend to take things a bit far...
And apologies to the Empire and Grand Moff Tarkin, I should have called it an Enhanced Interrogation Droid.
SO TRUE
I can deal with the shots, but the feeling of getting my wisdom teeth yanked/shattered out of my skull was the worst thing I've ever felt.
Other story: When I was eighteen I got my wisdom teeth pulled out and because my veins are always so hard for specialists to find, the dentist ended up injectind the drugs in some muscle tissue so by the time they started pulling my teeth out I COULD FEEL EVERYTHING. At the time I was really focused on appearing tough, so I held onto the dentist chair as I felt every single vibration, every single tool. I had headphones on and a discman and was listening to Supergrass. I will always associate that band with feeling of four of my teeth being pulled out of me.
Later on as I walked home the drugs finally kicked in and I drooled dark pink spit onto my old boyfriend's favorite t-shirt (a white t-shirt with an ironic message, it was 1999 after all).
I was hospitalized for a week after that. Every time I got a new IV put in people would tell me how rad and easy my veins are, so easy to find and get needles in. Some made jokes about illicit drug use.
I still have two little white dot scars on my arm from those IVs.
EDIT: Not to brag but I have AWESOME veins, many nurses/techs have actually said "oh, well this will be easy..."
it's bad for those left behind, if you are youngish (see a few New Yorkers ago, the devastating story by the poet whose husband dropped dead randomly while running on the treadmill), but for the dead person themselves I think it's ideal
I think the sudden death is considered preferable by those who no longer believe in God/the afterlife. If you knew you were going to heaven--or if you were concerned about making sure you went to heaven--the slow death would be better.
You guys don't know what you're talking about, just sayin'.
It's all so intensely hypothetical until it happens to you or someone you know.
Would've been better for everybody had it been sudden and quick.
But, maybe a sudden death is best if it's timely. Can't know.
I think like SK I am traumatized about the lingering death after watching my grandparents live 10 years longer than they should have. It was excruciating, for everyone, including them, and was just a heinous experience with zero positives. So now I just have this sense of wishing everyone the blessing of dropping dead, without having to deal with the existential angst, the shitting your pants, the idea that everyone you love is praying for you to die--what could be worse than that? But yeah, if someone is younger, maybe lingering awhile is nice? I don't know. I can't really imagine either, for a younger person, it's too sad. Lingering deaths can be so extreme and hideous; but sudden deaths are so shocking and appalling, it's true.
ugh life! what a racket
did everyone read Oliver Sacks's beautiful farewell letter to the world? I cried. This is a good example of how a slower death might be a good thing, if you get to write something like this. But he is an angel on this earth
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on-learning-he-has-terminal-cancer.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&src=me&WT.nav=MostEmailed&_r=0
this phobia thread got super hijacked! Whose fault was it, was it mine?? If so sorry guys
I have experienced both kinds of death. They are all shitty. I have also experienced the weird essentially death but not actual death of someone with severe brain injury waking up and basically having to start over as a person. Having to face death in it's various forms is sorta one of those weird beauty/horrors of life. It does open you up to a less ego heavy perspective and existence or something. I love the thestrals and Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter for their illustration of this.
I have a hard time not turning any conversation towards space, death, or basketball. Two out of three!
Wouldn't it be scary to die alone in space!?
YT, is this the procedure you had? If so, I am pretty familiar with that huge-ass needle, because I've been watching a lot of epidural and spinal tap (h/t to FTP) videos, and it's the same one. Intense.
holy shit
that skydiving instructor is really good at his job!!!!!! I don't get how they can go faster/slower/change direction. It's fucking incredible when dude catches up with seizing dude and yanks that cord. Fuck! My heart is pounding
I'm always worried about the house burning down. I want to invent a dog/cat security door that is connected to the smoke alarm, if that's not already a thing.
It has to actually OPEN UP when the alarm goes off, though, otherwise little dude won't know it's an option!
Who can invent this
I have 7 million other dog inventions.