#endocrinology

But I am done with nurse practitioners. I'm done. I'm fucking done. I have multiple chronic illnesses that have to be managed consistently, and having to re-explain what I have and how it affects me and what I want to do about it is fucking exhausting. It's fucking exhausting and I'm not doing it anymore.

This time they're either pairing me with an MD, Or a Naturopath. No one else. I will not change doctors again after this time. And if I do have to go to a different practice, I am getting my whole ass medical record from this practice getting the nurse practitioner to sign it, and giving it to the new practice like that. Figure it out!!!

I'm not explaining why I have something. Im not explaining why I think I have something. I'm just going to tell you. And I fucking expect you to just believe my previous doctor. I'm done. I'm done.

When eagle chicks are born, they have brown eyes due to high melanin production, which protects the eyes. Chicks & juveniles need glare reduction. At this stage, their vision is still "booting up." By the age of 1-3 years old, melanin production slows & their iris begins showing lighter tones. Their vision sharpens dramatically. By the time they reach 3-5 years, carotenoid-linked pigments begin accumulating & their hormones begin shifting towards adult levels. Finally, at the age of 5 or 6 years old, they develop yellow eyes. This signals full maturity, territorial readiness, & breeding capability. Their vision reaches peak contrast sensitivity. Eagles grow slowly & mature slowly, & their eyes reveal their age like a biological calendar.

Their eyes are so big they nearly fill the skull cavity. They can see in UV, letting them track urine trails of prey. They have a built-in bony sun visor ridge above their eyes. It acts like a permanent shade, blocking bright sunlight from above. It helps reduce glare, blocks overhead sunlight & helps eagles see clearly when flying towards the sun. It also protects their eyes from wind pressure during dives, which are extremely fast & powerful, reaching up to 120 mph (193 km/h) under ideal conditions. Golden eagles are the fastest divers among eagles, but nowhere near the dives of peregrine falcons, which can reach 240-260 mph (386-412 km/h) in a dive. They are the fastest divers in the world. No other animal (bird, mammal, fish, or insect) comes close.

Eagles' vision is 4-8x sharper than ours; they can see a rabbit from 2 miles. Eagles can see at a distance of 20 feet due to their 20/4 vision, while humans must move to a distance of 4 feet to see clearly. Eagles see 5x more detail than humans. At 20/2 vision, only peregrines have better vision than eagles. An eagle's grip strength is 400 psi (2,750 kPa), which stands for pounds per square inch & kilopascal. An eagle's grip is ten times stronger than tire pressure, a mastiff dog's bite force, or the crushing force of an automobile passing over your hand. Eagles have 2 foveae (the spots in our vision we use to read fine print). Eagles and peregrines have two foveae, which gives them a wide panoramic vision and a high-resolution magnification that enables them to zoom in on prey from miles away. Humans have only one fovea, so we can only focus sharply in one direction at a time.

Even during forceful wingbeats, their head remains motionless. Eagles have a 3rd eyelid that protects the eye during high-speed dives. It helps keep the eye moist, removes dust & debris, shields the eye from wind, & acts like a built-in windshield wiper. Eagles have slo-mo vision, meaning they see flicker at 100-120 Hz, meaning their eyes & brains refresh images 100-120x per second. This makes fast motion look slower & clearer to raptors. If an eagle watched TV, it would look flickery, choppy, & unnatural—not smooth like it does to us. Humans refresh motion at 50-60 Hz. Rapid motion blur is what humans see, whereas raptors see sharp detail.

And yeah this is a failure of basic education, but I work in genetics, my PhD is in genetics, I’ve worked in clinical genetics. Genetics and ‘Sex’ is so so so much more than 46,XX and 46,XY, genetics is wild and interesting and god I wish it wasn’t concentrated down into that.

There are so many people out there who present as women and are walking around with just 45,X or 47,XXX, a significant number without even realising! Some people are born with some cells with XX, some with just X, some with XY and literally myriad combinations and proportions! And even if someone has 90% XY cells and 10% X they may still present phenotypically female!

The proportion of how many ‘male’ cells and ‘female’ cells measured in the blood doesn’t even reliably predict how someone develops! (This is called mosaicism and I’ve literally done a research project on it)

Some people have 46,XY but because of so many reasons like genes (SRY), or hormone production or ability to respond to hormones - like being completely insensitive to testosterone - their body presents as phenotypically female.

Sometimes the Y chromosome is inherently unstable and literally falls off as you get older!!! So you have people walking around with 45,X cells when earlier in life they had 46,XY!

Done with last rotation of this year and last module✅

Glad to announce that after a long year of hard work , I can finally say that it was a success I passed and I’m officially a sixth year medical student ( time to change that bio lol )