"They Killed Freddie Gray: The Anatomy of a Police Brutality Cover Up" Featured in Mother Jones, Daily Beast, Appeal, NPR, Baltimore Mag, FAIR, more. #longcovid
Apr 17 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
I think about “Havana Syndrome” a lot and maybe that’s because of my experiences. I was immediately made sick from the air around Ground Zero and told it was safe and to return to work. I never recovered. 1/
Since then I have had such severe chemical sensitivity that I’ve had to move constantly and I’ve been gaslit every single time I’ve pointed out gas leaks, mold, pesticide (and where I could, I’ve always been proven right). 2/
Apr 11 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
If you wonder how genocide happens, look at your own responses to Covid cautious people and the immune compromised.
Did you have personal beefs with people who asked you to keep masking? Did you mock or alienate them? Does that make it easier for you if they get sick or die?
Each year, I earn more and more wisdom from disability. I explained to my friend yesterday, who was expressing pity for my complex health issues, that I don't want to be anything else. I like this wisdom.
Apr 6 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
When I say doctors are useless dummies I mean tonight.
I had surgery Wednesday - two organs removed - and two days later I was in crazy pain but only on one side, not responding to meds. Couldn’t walk.
Went to the triage at the hospital and they called… 1/
Physical therapy to teach me exercises???? I could not move and just had surgery and was in screaming pain.
I looked at them like they were crazy and they started making like I was a bad belligerent patient
When the PT came, I asked her if I could film the convo… 2/
Apr 2 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I wish doctors would drop this and acknowledge that they lost. We diagnose each other better than you do.
A very common example: for seven years I had near daily migraine triggered by environment esp chemicals. I couldn’t eat much. And I reacted badly to all medications. 1/
I saw “top migraine specialists” in multiple cities. I went in patient at a migraine hospital. Nobody helped me or sought a deeper explanation.
I followed Facebook communities for various chronic illnesses looking for an explanation. I landed in groups for mast cell disease 2/
Mar 15 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
For #LongCovidAwarenessDay I’ll reconfirm my commitment to the position that 95% or more of doctors stink and we need to overthrow the system towards a patient-led model
And any doctor who thinks that’s an overstatement isn’t on the side of patients
Feb 14 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
When the vaccines for Covid first emerged, disabled people were having a different conversation than the rest of you. You believed Biden and took off your masks.
We were 1) looking at countries like Israel, where vaccination was widespread and disease was still rampant…
2) We were experiencing drastic side effects to the new (undertested) technology and noticed that the Biden admin was giving 10 days off for vaccine recovery…. For a reason…
Dec 29, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
🧵
I think @jonfavs and others don't understand. THIS is how Long Covid happens in the vast majority of cases (including mine):
1. Someone has a relatively mild infection, is not hospitalized, feels "normal" in a couple of weeks, at most.
2. They get back to their routine - moderate exertion at home and work, exercise, etc.
3. A few weeks or so later, they suddenly feel some kind of pain/weakness/dizziness upon exertion. They push through or rest. It doesn't matter.
4. The next day, they are immobilized.
Sep 23, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
In a new article for @FAIRmediawatch, I look closely at how the @baltimoresun played a key role in helping Baltimore police cover up what really happened to Freddie Gray.
The Sun marginalized and ultimately erased witness accounts..1/
fair.org/home/the-balti…
This article draws a through-line from David Simon's legacy of embedding himself in BPD homicide to the Sun's coverage of the Freddie Gray case.
iThe Sun invested a multi-media budget in interactive timelines and videos that supported BPD's claims. 2/ fair.org/home/the-balti…
Jun 7, 2023 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Transit purists caught in wildfire smoke can maybe think about if you expect disabled folks, asthmatics etc to wait outside for buses, no problem.
And what about when the wildfires approach your homes? Wait outside for public escape vehicles??
Now’s a good time to put yourselves in the shoes of people who talk about cars as necessity and reconsider how sustainability prepares for human survival
May 13, 2023 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
The CVS near me is no longer offering a PCR test. Rapid tests cost $70.
Without a positive test, you can’t get Paxlovid.
I can’t imagine worse people running this country
And there are no county sites within an hour from me
May 12, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Many of my relationships fell apart last year, because I wanted people to care more about Covid, masks, disability, my health, etc. But I wonder what their takes would be on what happened. They’re mostly social activists. I doubt they would admit this. Kind of curious TBH.
I’ve stopped pushing these issues btw, but I also don’t really befriend nondisabled people anymore. You all scare me
May 12, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
It’s #WorldMEDay! Myalgic Encephalopathy was defined as a prolonged illness after an infection. It’s defining feature is an inability to exercise or otherwise do a lot w/o major crashes lasting days or weeks. It’s also known as “chronic fatigue syndrome” but that name sucks! 1/
“Fatigue” is something we all suffer but “fatigue” from ME is different: it involves lack of blood flow to the brain- what happens to dying people. It isn’t relieved by sleep.
The illness is finally getting attention with hundreds of millions newly suffering post-Covid. 2/
May 12, 2023 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
I don’t know one disabled advocate that didn’t lose most of their nondisabled allies in 2022.
It was a profound historical moment in our movement and the seeds of widespread fascism others don’t want to see. We faced not only abandonment by nondisabled allies but ramped up targeted campaigns against us, with all the ableism is a punchline discourse and masks are policing.
Feb 21, 2023 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
This person never doesn't have the most ableist takes. IIRC, she once argued that half of disabled people on twitter are choosing not to get better.
Why do so many of your continue to follow people with takes like this? Are these leftist takes?
A DSA person a week ago tweeted something like "Long Covid people want to fight, but they're too tired to even climb the stairs." I asked a handful of people privately to please unfollow that person, and nobody replied.
Feb 20, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I fought with the mind-body zealots on Facebook today.
They never think you can cure depression by not being sick. They always say you have to mentally think your way out of illness.
There is a TON of evidence of blood vessel damage, clotting, viral persistance, Ebstein Barr reactivation in Long Covid. It’s a deadly virus.
There is ZERO evidence that it’s a “functional” or mental disorder. But @nataliesurely is banking a career on harming sick people.
Feb 19, 2023 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Neighborhoods with intensive police presence and unwelcome interaction also means more Covid and other pathogen spread, unwelcome. Obviously more so with incarceration
Things are more connected than I see ppl acknowledge, while trying to forget about Covid and still be activists
Things a lot of people have forgotten in the last two years that I know they learned:
- a high % of cases is asymptomatic so just being in the world without PPE means you’re a vector
- low risk people without PPE are, consequentially, oppressors of high risk people around them.
Feb 10, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I wrote so many tweet threads during 2017-2019 about Baltimore policing that are really not that well written or clear.
Whenever I take a look back for research, I wonder how I thought anyone was supposed to understand me.
Feb 9, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
It’s horrible being a woman needing medical care. In some parts of the country, the only specialists are men. It’s not a given that a woman doctor will cause less harm, but it has been my experience. And I can’t find one.
Woman of color especially, trans woman or trans man, honestly anything but a Cis male doctor would be great and there isn’t one who takes my insurance
Feb 9, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
If wearing a mask is a culture issue, I’m dying to know what this socialist thinks of red lights
“Stopping at red lights is performative cultural solidarity, not real solidarity, and how do you expect to win people to your side by demanding they stop at red lights?”
Feb 8, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Ten years later, I was still processing being at the twin towers when they fell and what happened to my health from the air quality downtown
Oh man I’m so tired of catastrophe. Since 2020: Covid, long covid, the Dominguez Channel chemical spill that displaced me, in the path of two hurricanes. Act 3 plz
