These stories are so deceiving. LASIK IS NOT a miracle of science, it's a monster of science and a bastardization of public health protections. I had 20/20 vision immediately after my LASIK too, just a few years later, I was BLIND from LASIK.

https://twitter.com/yuris/status/1776252862861136247

LASIK is an incredibly dangerous procedure. And the risk of complications is EXPONENTIALLY higher than what the industry reports due to fraudulent surveys and data manipulation. Even the dude who approved LASIK for the FDA is trying to get it banned after finding this out.

Lol, I was eligible to skip multiple grades and passed on MIT to go to Harvey Mudd for math & CS. The reason why? I was undiagnosed autistic & ADHD. Most (all?) exceptionally smart people have undx'd disabilities, which leads to crashing and burning out in our 30s...

https://twitter.com/thechosenberg/status/1772646454256963659

We crash and burn bc our disabilities (that we don't even know we have) go unaccommodated. Worse still, the systems of corporate America & government are NOT designed to accommodate us, in fact, they're designed to be hostile to us.

Been too tired to read or write much lately, but I wanted to add a few things to that NPR article by the wife who is grieving the loss of her regular life more than she's grieving the toll COVID took on her husband. Let's start with some damning quotes... "I want to keep my husband safe & healthy. But I also want our old life back. It feels selfish & trivial to say that amid [his] plight. He is terrified that if he gets COVID again, it will be as harrowing as the first time. And it could trigger a flare up of his chronic illness."

A family friend died very unexpectedly a few months ago. We just found out why today: fentanyl OD. But here's the kicker: their doctor wouldn't prescribe them anti-anxiety meds so they started getting them off the streets and unfortunately got a contaminated batch. She was only 33 years old and was several years sober. But this war on drugs is pushing so many people to get their much needed meds from illicit places and it's putting their lives at risk. It's just so ridiculous bc it shouldn't be this way.

I finally saw a neurologist. My GP referred me for my chronic fatigue (she wants me to do a sleep study). But I thought I'd see what this neurologist thinks about COVID and how it could be related to my symptoms, and boy, was it a doozy... I should have known it would be bad just by walking down the corridor and seeing signs on every doctor's door that said either "masks required" or "masks optional". This dude had a "masks optional" sign on his door...

I'm on week 4 of #thenicotinetest for my long COVID symptoms. And let me just say... Hooooly shit I think I might actually be able to get a good chunk of my life back after this. Details below 👇 I will add a caveat that I also started metformin like 5 days ago and MitoQ a month ago, but based on the timing of these changes, I'm pretty sure they're mostly attributed to the nicotine patches. Unfortunately, I couldn't wait to do proper science bc I need results ASAP

Describe what your long COVID is like for the normies who don't mask and think COVID is just a cold. I'll go first... My brain feels perpetually like mush. This isn't fun BTW. I have trouble reading and comprehending anything longer than a paragraph, I have trouble using my imagination, I struggle with brainstorming. I struggle to remember things. I feel like I have dementia.

Sometimes I still have moments where I can't believe I have long COVID. Like I tried SO HARD to prevent infection for me and my family. But after 3 years, I finally got infected thanks to my dad. He was lied to by every public health org, by the MSM, by social media, and by his doctors, that COVID was no big deal. This failed public health response meant none of his friends took COVID seriously either, so how could he?

Funny story about mask wearing: Our family friend just flew home today. He's one of the only people masked at the airport. He's first to board and gets a window seat. As the plane fills, no one is masking. Eventually, he sees an older woman wearing a mask, She stops and asks if any of the seats are taken and that she'd like to sit here since he's masked and would feel a lot safer. So now he's got a seat buddy who's taken the aisle seat. More people boarding, no one wearing a mask. Then they both see another man masking,

This is literally the EXACT reason doctors gave in the 1800s when Semmelweis proposed doctors in maternity wards should wash their hands after working on cadavers. The doctors were OFFENDED at the idea that they could somehow be the source of disease and contagion... This was even AFTER Semmelweis demonstrated that after introducing hand washing, his Ward's infant mortality rate went from 14% to LESS THAN 2%! It didn't matter, doctors felt offended. So Semmelweis, even after saving many lives, was fired from his job in disgrace.

I'm on day 4 of using nicotine patches for long COVID. The best part so far? I haven't woken up with brain fog, like, at all this week! I wake up feeling pretty normal in the brain for an hour or two, absolutely amazing. It eventually comes back, but not for an hour or so... Normally when I wake up, my brain is super foggy and it takes me a couple hours to just get up and get going. Now? It still takes me an hour to get going, but mostly bc I'm just enjoying my time in bed feeling NORMAL for once. Best part of my day.

My family is in desperate need of help. Social Security claims my mom suddenly owes them 10k in overpayments out of the blue. We sent in an overpayment waiver and we just heard back, they're withholding 100% of her SSI for a YEAR until it's repaid! I'm realizing that, since I still can't work due to long COVID, I truly do need to ask for help. So I'm asking for help: if you have the means to help a family in need, can you donate to our GoFundMe? gofund.me/97dd0cba

Looking at all of my long COVID symptoms, this is definitely a "mild" case of LC: I was never hospitalized, have no "severe" symptoms, and most cleared up already. The ONLY major symptoms I have left are brain fog, fatigue, and heart palpitations. And yet LC still ruined my life. I haven't been able to work consistently at all since getting infected. Doing just a single coaching call gives me severe brain fog and fatigue afterwards that can last for days. I have little energy to cook or clean or do any kind of research anymore.

All this damned "infighting" in the COVID community. It's literally the worst thing! I've seen A LOT of call outs, telling people to chill about maskless COVID influencers who continue to refrain from masking in their photos, videos, events, and interviews, and let me just say... Those people doing the call outs are so right. Why should prominent members of the COVID community—doctors, researchers, professors, scientists, and other public health advocates—why should they need to mask everywhere they go?

One of the worst parts about long COVID is how it steals your dreams. My brain doesn't work the way it used to. I can't rely on myself to be able to DO STUFF like I used to. The other day I had to take a 2 hour break from reading just to lie there while my brain turned to mush. While I was lying in bed in total darkness bc the lights were too bright as well, I realized I hadn't dreamt about my future in a long time. Even during the pandemic, my brain was hard at work figuring out how to both survive the pandemic, and how to make a viable future from it.

Honestly, I am so thankful for the COVID conscious community on Twitter. It really is the last bastion of sanity left. I'm at my dad's memorial where my mom and I are the only ones wearing respirators and I'm being made to feel like the crazy one... When COVID is LITERALLY responsible for killing my dad and disabling me. Even without the disablement, my first infection kept me bedridden for an entire month. And people are making a big deal bc I'm not eating with them and I'm the only one in a mask.

Just found out they're SLASHING my mom's social security thanks to the windfall act. She has a super small pension and they are punishing her for it and I'm absolutely livid. She's supposed to get 100% of my dad's SS, but after all the deductions, it's only going to be like 20% Pretty sure this isn't going to be enough for her to live off of. My dad took care of her and paid all the bills. Absolutely fucking awful. Honestly not sure what we're gonna do now since I can barely work due to long COVID.

Was too tired to cook so ordered delivery and had a really sad interaction with the delivery driver. When I opened the door they saw my Flo Mask and asked if I had COVID. I assured them no, but it's currently going around so I'm protecting myself. She said "oh yeah, it's a killer!" She then said people were telling her it's no big deal, but, in her words, "it's killed SO many people. How could it not be a big deal?" She said she didn't want to catch it either, and gave more details, all the while she wasn't wearing a mask.

I'm a sex & dating coach but have mostly been silent about the Jonah Hill texts, choosing instead to amplify the female voices in this space who have said so much already. I didn't think I had much to add to the discourse... until now that is. An important thread: One thing missing from the discourse is what it looks like for a man to deal with the feelings of insecurity on display in those texts, in real time. I went through a similar scenario in an early relationship years ago and I want to recap what went down to help men learn & grow.

It's weird having ADHD bc you can't rely on your short term memory. Like, I can't just REMEMBER something. Instead, I have to remember to REMIND myself to remember something lol. It's awful. But I have developed my own memory hack over the years that's helped me cope, a🧵: 1/4 I can't just say, "remember to get the screwdriver from the garage when you go down there" bc I will forget. Every. Time. This is why it's taken me a week to remember to grab a screwdriver from the garage "next time I go down there." I've literally been saying that for a week 2/4

I still can't get over the fact I masked every day while my dad was in ICU and hospice. I masked 20+ hours a day. I slept on the floor, hospital chairs, once I even got a couch, and I slept wearing my FloMask EVERY FUCKING NIGHT for a week straight... After the guests are gone, we open all the windows and doors, turn on the AC, spray Lysol spray in every room, and allow the house to air out for 30 minutes before we remove our masks. Bc neither one of us can afford to get COVID again. I have long COVID and she's disabled.