Having Ehlers Danlos Syndrome sometimes feels about the equivalent of being composed of jello and wet spaghetti. Nothing stays where its supposed to. Literally every single cell in the body is floppy, so fingers are definitely an issue for many of us. I can almost guarantee that for the majority of us, writing is not only slow and painful but nearly impossible at times. FIne motor skills? What even are those? An EDSer surely doesn’t have any of those. Even typing which is far easier than writing, is painful and daunting at times. But last year I joined the population of shiny zebras by getting fitted for a set of Silver Rings Splints and they are beyond magical.
For those of you who have not heard of The Silver Ring Splint Company, they are a company that custom makes finger splints that look like elegant pieces of jewelry. Don’t believe me? Well I can’t even tell you how many compliments I’ve received for them. Nobody even suspects that they might possibly be medical. But more importantly, they work amazing! I still have hand pain and finger dislocations when performing fine motor skills and writing is definitely not something I look forward to but I have saved myself thousands of painful dislocations, I can open doors easier, type faster, write longer and hold objects in my hands without looking like an alien from a sic-fi movie. With the rings on my fingers actually look like fingers rather than tentacles!
The company is also family owned and the people are so sweet and helpful!
If you are having trouble with hand pain, clumsiness and dislocations please check out this amazing company!
I’m literally crying right now. I will be able to use my hands!!! As it stands I can’t do dishes, hold things, write, hold books, type, without pain or dislocation. Oh my gosh. This is a miracle.
My sister has these and she loves them. It’s given her new life.
Here’s hoping this post makes it to someone who needs it.
I don’t have EDS but I do have arthritis, and when I have flares these help a lot.
yo treasure planet was literally the best 2d disney film ever made like the setting? the colors? the flawless transition? the gorgeous world building? the three dimensional characters? a main character who’s never pressured to get into anything remotely close to romance? complex relationships? an antagonist who has layers to his character? the soundtrack? i could go the FUCK on,
PLUS THIS SCENE?
AND THIS????
We’re all just suckers for lonely heroes accidentally acquiring a dad.
the reason why this movie is so underrated is that disney released it almost side by side with the harry potter movie.
treasure planet was a very, very expensive movie that used novel cgi mixed with 2d drawing, took a lot of work and money to create, the script itself was amazing to work with, the characters had arcs and depths, and the story as a whole was compelling and never off.
i don’t think anyone ever figured out why disney wanted it to flop, but the date of release was strictly suicidal for a movie. that’s why it never got the attention it deserved.
This is my favorite Disney movie like for real I watched it like 10000 times as a little kid and even more when I got older. I love it
The combo tech in the new Lego Star Wars needs to be seen to be believed
For context, they discovered Younglings can be hit but not hurt, meaning you can air combo them to get arbitrary height and distance if you do it right, so this can be used to cross any open space for speed running
They’re not a parasite, they’re a potential investment
When you read Ayn Rand a dozen times
Here’s the thing, medically, babies ARE parasites. They are an organism that feeds off a host (gestational parent) without any benefit, and possibly with detriment, to the host. (Warm fuzzies do not count as a benefit from a medical perspective.) If the baby is breastfed postpartum, this host/parasite relationship continues. Fetuses can and do leach nutrients from the parent as needed (we literally have a colloquial phrase for this, “eating for two”), and can cause things like gestational diabetes, severe nausea, and an inability to eat.
So yeah! Babies are great, babies are necessary for the continuation of the species, babies are adorable, I would like to live in a world that continues to have babies, but they are also very much parasites.
“…without any benefit…”.
Not true. During gestation, the baby will provide stem cells to the mother in the event of an injury.
Not true. This happens in mice, but it’s not clear if it happens in humans.
Also I’m just saying, if this is a thing that happens in some gestational parents, that doesn’t negate the serious health problems being pregnant causes in MOST gestational parents without intervention. (And by “without intervention” I mean these things are common enough we have prenatal checkups, prenatal vitamins, prenatal diets, the list goes on, to ensure the parent doesn’t suffer permanent effects.)
Fetuses and embryos can be considered parasites, although they’re typically not treated as such because biologically, what the gestational parent gets out of it is genetic continuation, which is considered beneficial (hosting aside, that’s a recent invention), but those aren’t babies, because they haven’t been born yet. Babies (which are already born) aren’t necessarily parasites, and some breastfeeding parents get at least the happy brain chemicals out of it.
A good point. I saw the word parasite and jumped immediately past the financial thing everyone else seems to be taking it as (no, a child needing financial support is not a parasite, stop listening to Tucker Carlson jesus fucking wept), and into a conversation I had many years ago with my sister, who is a nurse.
The warm fuzzies you get from being pregnant with a baby you wanted is beneficial, I would argue.
Like, I will be the first to tell you about all the horrible things pregnancy can do to your body. But on this website, where most people are either avowedly child-free or too young to be in a position to have kids, I am not sure how many people there are who, while still understanding that people who don’t want kids should not have them, are able to talk about the positive part of a wanted pregnancy, which is primarily emotional.
When you’re pregnant, you’re never alone. It’s hard for me to remember, after two years of Covid, ever not desperately craving being alone, but I was capable of loneliness when I was younger. There is always a silent presence with you, who loves you but asks nothing more than you’re already giving. The fetus inside you is like a cat curled up at your side, purring, demanding nothing of you (consciously. it’s demanding huge amounts of work from your body, but it’s not triggering your social anxiety by demanding interaction.) In a world where we can acknowledge that pet shrimp can be beneficial because people survive better when there’s something they love that depends on them, we should acknowledge that pregnancy may give some people meaning to their lives, and may have a protective effect against depression for many (while biologically causing depression in others, so it’s hardly a magic pill.)
The born baby, of course, is a massively demanding little critter, but there are moments of peace and happiness. The unborn baby is not asking you to do anything, because your body is already doing it.
A wanted baby is a symbiote. It does take a great deal from you, but it gives back. An unwanted baby is a parasite, and given the enormous damage a pregnancy can do to a human body, no one should ever be forced to carry one. Or even talked into it. I personally feel that the only people who should reproduce are the ones who desperately want to. If the thought of being 50 and not having children fills you with a howling, hollow horror, if you cannot imagine a future without children, then get pregnant when you are in a relatively stable place in your life. If you just feel like, i dunno, it’s kind of what everyone expects, right?… then no.
something about netflix castlevania felt really weird but oddly familiar in the way the story is medieval low fantasy and yet every character is not only speaking in a super modern way but constantly dunking on eachothers backstories, dropping f bombs with impunity, and going on 5 minute tangents on whether or not vampires really are killed by running water and I couldn’t put my finger on it until I realized they all talk like they’re players in a dnd campaign
Jane Austen really said ‘I respect the “I can fix him” movement but that’s just not me. He’ll fix himself if knows what’s good for him’ and that’s why her works are still calling the shots today.
Meanwhile Emily Brönte just said “We can make each other worse.”
