#gracevanpelt

MAKE ME CHOOSE: @gracevanpelt​ asked → dana scully or teresa lisbon?

been feeling like i might scream and i got approximately three hours of sleep last night so i’ll tell a story that had a (sort of) happy ending inasmuch as any medical story has one. i sort of posted about this a couple months ago when it happened but it’s still interesting.

A FOURTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL WHO TERRIFIED ME

so a couple months ago i was in the emergency department and the doctor i was following around said “okay there’s a kid over there whose triage complaint is that she’s got “~vision disturbances~,” go see what that’s about and come tell me.” (that’s a very silly complaint for a kid in an EMERGENCY dept, so we figured it’s probably not an emergency and therefore chill if i spend time talking to her while the doc puts out actual fires)

i go introduce myself to her and her dad, make sure she’s okay talking to me while he’s there, and start asking her what’s wrong.

within thirty seconds, i was thinking What. The. Fuck.

by the end of one minute i wanted to go get the doctor because this was Not. Normal. i stayed for another four just to get her whole story in case there was a simple answer. then i ran.

--

picture this: you’re a fourteen year old girl, you play sports sometimes at school so you’re pretty active and healthy, though this year has been a whole mess for you too. you don’t have any medical problems except for that one time you got itchy all over after eating something weird and sometimes you get migraines, like your mom. your teeth are kind of wonky so you have braces, like every other fourteen year old. no one you know is sick. you were sitting there in your zoom class, attempting to pay attention as the teacher is trying to tell you about the great schism in europe and hwo it disdfhks the chsdr and caiudf serfvbjk wafd that ufdkjfhgnt afrjkhgdk the wojldr for gnesjdhaktns

uh oh.

school doesn’t always make sense to you but this is a whole new level of not understanding what the teacher is saying. your head has been hurting all morning and now this? you try to type a question into the chat box. maybe if she repeats herself you’ll understand. but your arm is tingling and numb and feels like it weighs a ton

now the tingling is kind of spreading up from your fingers and your arm and your shoulder and now you can’t feel your tongue?? you stand up to go look in the mirror and your leg feels super weird too, but you make it and see-

-except you don’t, totally, because your vision is blurry and you can hardly see out of your right eye, but from what you can tell your eyelid and your mouth are drooping and you can’t fucking see

you yell for help. but zoom has taken over the world now and your dad is home but down in the basement so his meetings and your class don’t yell over each other and he can’t hear you calling and your speech is slurring now so maybe he doesn’t understand?

you make it down the stairs, crying, half blind, slurring your speech, and kind of dragging the dead weight of your right arm and leg with you and thankfully your dad soon figures out This Is Very Wrong and brings you to the hospital.

--

she was feeling a little bit better by the time i met her - about an hour after she first started noticing something wrong. she could understand me, for one. her eye and mouth weren’t drooping, though her speech was still slow and she was struggling to finish her thoughts. her arm wasn’t tingling any more, but it was still weak, as was her leg. her headache had gone from a 9/10 to a 7 or 8/10.

her story still scared the shit out of me.

“doc,” i said, catching my breath after sprinting to where he was. “doc this girl sounds really strange, if she were an older person i’d say she was having a stroke or-”

to his credit, the doctor did not stop to question this ridiculous student who thinks a fourteen year old girl is stroking out. to his credit he instantly stood up and ran to go see her.

we called a stroke alert.

in the ER, that means that she gets priority for imaging and blood work, so we got a scan of her brain and had her blood drawn and took a chest x ray and-

all normal. everything was clean.

now, brain scans can miss strokes within the first six hours - not all the time, but it’s possible. But a clear one is never a BAD thing. nonetheless, we called the nearest children’s hospital that had specialists for this kind of thing and they agreed to take her; off she went in an ambulance while her dad panicked and i worried and scratched my head

but the doctor had his suspicions. and in the end, it turned out that he was right.

with covid, kids have been stroking out, which is why he took this so seriously. but he paid attention to one very important part of this girl’s story - she suffers from migraines.

as it turns out, there’s a weird form of migraine - a complex hemiplegic migraine - that can mimic a stroke. we didn’t do anything wrong - you have to do a stroke workup to make sure it isn’t one anyway, but once you’ve ruled it and a couple other things out you can finally exhale and smile and get the absolute JOY of giving good news to your very scared patient.

patrick jane ......... omg my king 😩🥵

in reality though, jane might be one of the greatest male tv protagonists. his arc is so compelling and he has such great defining characteristics and his flaws make sense and enhance the story. it’s so refreshing how he’s super secure in his masculinity and doesn’t need to “prove” himself. lisbon really went “your vests are kinda hot” one time and this man changed his whole look for her!! ok feminist icon. i love how he is the damsel in distress and cowers behind lisbon whenever they’re on a case. he trusts lisbon so much and has such confidence in her and doesn’t try to be the guy with the gun. 

it’s so sweet how he loves lisbon so deeply and it’s not just in a romantic way. he never weirdly pursued her or something he just wanted to be besties!!!!!! he’s like that’s my partner and the best person i know <3  also if u think jane didn’t deserve lisbon u are getting blocked and reported hehe :)

bro thank u wtf :))

i have very strong opinions about music and how beautiful it is and how amazing that someone can craft a story into a song :’) and like vibes that different sounds give off and different how different syntax and rhetorical devices can give different meanings and bring new emotions to songs i-- i could go on forever actually

this is a psych stan WORLD and we’re all just living in it

simon baker is the only man i trust

ive started like seven books these past two weeks but about ten pages in i get distracted by my own thoughts and have to reread the same page twelve times and then i give up and stare at a wall