Tag: Medical

Geeking Science: Reading and the Brain

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

When I surface from a book and sounds return to my ears, I’m always amazed at how deep a book can take you. Peripheral vision goes as I focus on the words. Sounds processing diminishes as my eyes turn over the words to process through the hearing and speech centers. And when I emerge, the aches and pains of my body return. And, strangely, the last scent and taste described in the scene linger against my nose and tongue.

Reading is intense.

It activates our brain feel the words before us – a crackling fire teases our ears and warms our fingers, a favorite sweater pulls our hair as the hero yanks it over his head, and a punch whistling before the heroine’s face causes our heart to jump in a fight or flight mix.

This gives writers a very particular power. “According to neuroscience, we have two different types of memory: semantic and episodic.” (DeFreitas)

Semantic is library storage – things learned and then shelved. They go moldy over time if they are not taken down and brushed off. For some people, Algebra is no longer a thing and for others, the history dates memorized to carefully pass tests in high school. If you can web them into other things, sharing shelf space, they stay clean longer and are easier to restore – checks are similar to deposits and paying bills online. It might take a moment to remember all the details needed to write a check at this point, but so long as you keep the rest of the banking-system shelf active, it can be done.

Episodic memory is capturing a whole scene. The time you cried your heart out because you lost a card game, going off to overnight camp the first time, a first kiss. You remember names, and smells, and lights, and emotions.

It’s like reading a scene in a book.

Now here is the Geeking Science part to tap into for NaNoWriMo – please use this power for good. You want people to remember something – not just the facts, but the emotions, write the information to activate the episodic memory, not the semantic. We all remember The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank’s Diary) because of the emotions, not the facts. People argue about whether the holocaust occurred, but that book, that gave teens something to hang history onto.

Create stories to expose people new thoughts, new people, new concepts, new science. They might never really “get” it when they read it in a newspaper, but the fiction reaches them. They see it, they hear it, they smell it. They feel it.

Now, go write.

Go read.

Bibliography

DeFreitas, Susan. “The Fascinating Neuroscience of the Scene.” Jane Friedman. 8 June 2023. (https://janefriedman.com/the-fascinating-neuroscience-of-scene/ – last viewed 11/16/2023)

Flash: Harm’s Highway

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by Daniele D’Andreti on Unsplash

Douglas Yu edged over to the ward’s entry desk as maternity took the active labor handoff from the emergency room team the technician had run from ambulance to the second floor. Marigold Miles, the receptionist administrator, asked in sympathy as the sweaty medical professional leaned against the desk. “Diameter?”

“Arrived at ten and baby’s a breech. Jeff had his arm all the way up her hoo-hah trying to rotate the kid when they arrived.”

Marigold shuddered. “Responders are a different animal.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” After a couple more minutes of catching his breath, grateful he didn’t have to add another birth notches on his ER belt, Douglas looked over at Marigold monitoring her station’s equipment. “Speaking of different animals, do you know what happened with that Jane Smith trying to Surrender her kid while still pregnant?”

“Oh, did she come in on your watch?”

“Checked her in myself.”

Marigold smiled, always loving to share gossip. Maternity had the best morsels. “We got everyone involved from admin to lawyers. You know how they hated the revenue loss of IVF; well, since ‘nothing is illegal the first time’ as Jimmy in legal says, this was the perfect test case. The Doc-on-duty consulted with Psych to sign off on the woman being a danger to herself and her baby if she remained pregnant, so we induced while getting social services on the horn. Baby boy Smith got his blue blanket while mommy signed over all her rights and named his dad. I think it was the first time ever we had a birth certificate with “unknown” under the mom.”

“Jesus.”

“Right, so social got police, since the boyfriend had locked her out of the mutual apartment in the rain at night, endangering the baby, and they went over to her place to get her stuff out, including her purse and they found where he had cut her ID into bits. With her phone, she called her friend and they skedaddled. The police then went to his place of business to let him know about the baby, and that is when we get the next part of the story.” Marigold wiggled her eyebrows.

“It gets better?”

“It gets better.” The admin glanced at her monitors, then leaned on the lower desk to get closer. “He came here, since social needed him to take the baby. After all he is the only name on the birth certificate. First he claims it wasn’t his, but, damn, that kid had his face. It had nearly twenty-four hours to get over being smooshed out the canal. We offered to do a DNA, so he says he didn’t want the kid, just the girl. He says he wouldn’t have poked holes in the condoms if he known he was going to get stuck with a screaming baby by himself.”

“He what?”

“Yeah, forced pregnancy. Basically like being raped for nine months. Your attacker is always with you. Fucking mental. Anyway, he signed away his rights then ran out of here saying he was going to get the bitch for leaving him. Social says he figured out which friend was helping out Jane and banged on her door until 9-1-1 got him out of the building. They had kept in touch to let her know if he claimed the kid or not. Seems like Jane didn’t want daddy to have the kid, but saw no way around it. Said it wouldn’t be fair for her to have the kid when every time she looked it in the face for the rest of her life and think how much she hated its father and what happened to her. She was scared for Baby Smith, but she could only save herself.”

“Did she get out?”

“Last news was restraining order and a friend network to get her out-of-state.”

“And the kid.”

“Momma Jane had taken care of herself, no drugs. She was a good kid, just in a bad situation. I think if she felt even some control over her life and her body, she could have kept Baby Boy, but…”

“Yeah.”

“Well, white newborns, all signed over to the state get snatched up easy. Social says he is with a foster-adoption couple and his two dads adore him.”

“All’s well, that end’s well?”

“Hon, you just showed your male privilege, but that is okay. Jane had to jump states, has no job history she dare access, no home, one suitcase, and is cut off from half her friends or more. She just gave birth and has no medical insurance, and a part of her will always remember she had to give up her baby because of a toxic man. Baby boy will grow up wondering why his momma didn’t love him, and that poison man is out there, lying his ass off, and likely will pull this shit on another woman.”

Yu sighed. “You’re right. Well, at least things have a chance of getting better.”

“We got a long way to go for that to happen. Legal is pissed that no one flagged situation so they can duke it out in court and maybe start nibbling at getting our IVF money maker back.” Marigold rotated back to her screens. “Don’t forget to vote next Tuesday.”

“You too.”

“Already sent it in, I got back-to-back shifts scheduled.”

“See you next birth.”

“You too.”

(words 892; first published 10/13/2024)

Safe Surrender Duology

  1. Safe Surrender (10/6/2024)
  2. Harm’s Highway (10/13/2024)

Flash: Safe Surrender

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

Maturity Tag: Language

Black rain sparkled against the pavement outside the hospital’s emergency room as the automatic doors softly opened and closed, letting in another needy soul seeking care and compassion. The admittance admin glanced over as she worked on assigning the emergency in front of her their place in triage, a few stitches likely would be enough but a fully certified medical professional would need to make the final call. The woman at the door turned sideways, her profile against bright lights immediately jumped her to the front of the line. Pregnancy won most triage sorting battles.

One of the ER staff rushed forward, skipping the normal administrative procedures.

“Hello. My name is Douglas Yu, I am an ER technician. Are you okay dear?” he asked, “Any bleeding or contractions?”

“No,” she said rubbing her belly, a frown etched between her eyes, “I just want it out. I can leave the baby here, right?”

“What, um, is this an emergency? Is something happening?”

“No, no. I am just done with this. I waited seven months, it should be viable, just get it out and I can leave.”

The medical professional blinked. “Ma’am, we don’t just do that.”

“Sure you do, you induce all the time.” The woman pushed her wet hair back, her voice raising. “Just give me the shots, get this fucking kid out, and let me get on with my life.”

“Ma’am while you can leave a baby at the hospital if you are unable to take care of it, your child has to be born first. It has to BE a baby.”

“Look, they said it was a baby as soon as conception, it’s conceived. They said I can’t get an abortion. I’m not asking for an abortion. I waited seven fucking months. I did the time. It can live on its own. GET.IT.OUT.”

The tech waved off the police officer walking towards them from his normal station near the door. “Ma’am, ma’am. Let’s come over here and get you signed in.”

“I don’t want a pysch eval, I’m fine.” She eyed him as they walked over. “I am just done with this bullshit of not allowed to even leave the state because I got knocked up because they cut off my damn birth control. Get this thing out.”

“Can I have your license?” the technician fired up his computer station.

“Nope, John took it because he thought I would hop states on him. The bastard isn’t wrong. As soon as it’s legal, I’m gone. I got a new one ordered and it should arrive next week at a friend’s house so this shit doesn’t happen again.”

“Insurance card maybe?”

“Do you SEE a purse? I fucking walked here because the bastard is out with friends getting drunk tonight.” She sat down in a wheelchair a gray-haired hospital volunteer brought over. “Just call me Jane Smith, no insurance because I got fired for being fucking pregnant, though the boss didn’t word it that way. I was taking too much time throwing up in the bathroom.”

“Sounds like a bad situation ma’am. I am sorry you have had to live with it. Do you have a primary caregiver?”

“Nope, no insurance.” The woman naming herself as Jane crossed her arms, then took a deep breath, one of her hands moving up to grip her shoulder. “Please, I just want this nightmare to end.”

“I’m going to transfer you to OBGYN area. They might have a solution for you.”

“I told you the solution. They said it’s a baby even in a petri dish, they said if you can’t take of a baby to drop it off, they said it can’t be by abortion, so here I am, get it out and let me escape.”

The tech locked his screen after it beeped the second floor nursing staff could accept a non-emergency patient. Pulling a bracelet off the printer, he wrapped it around the woman’s wrist. “Mr. Shepherd here will take you to them. Good luck.”

(words 665; first published 10/6/2024)

Safe Surrender Duology

  1. Safe Surrender (10/6/2024)
  2. Harm’s Highway (10/13/2024)

Editing Rant: Bloody Times

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by Alexandre Boucey on Unsplash

Okay guys, do NOT look away. I’m writing this editing rant because a male author got this HORRIBLY wrong.

Menstruation.

Women go through this all the time. And everyone in society should KNOW about how it impacts the people living through it – and by everyone, I mean male and female and whatever other genders there are – they need to know for their mothers and daughters and wives and coworkers and friends and kin and kith and strangers.

For the particular science fiction driving this editing rant, the world had been so far advanced people could use nanites to make themselves dragons, and teleport, and do everything. Then their science had a critical failure and everything started over. They had to learn to become farmers again instead of the machines doing everything. They had to learn to fight over scarce resources. They had to recreate governments.

And they had to learn to deal with bodies no longer under their total control. The women started menstruating, and the author devoted time in the training montage of adjusting to the new society to discussing how the society adjusted to this fact of life and biology.

I would be tickled about him including this important aspect of life … except …

He did it poorly.

The portion of the review applicable to today’s rant:

My biggest problem with the sexism in the book is when the menstrual cycles restart in women. (The science-fiction author) does do a good job of having the true-to-life wide-range of physical impacts, from just a few cramps to being curled in a ball for days. But the initial dissemination of information about it was totally unbelievable. I do not see women who have forgotten this problem ever existed immediately referring to it as “the curse.” Nor do I see immediately separating men from women to share the information and all the women saying “you don’t want to know”. And when the men finally figure out the “secret”, anytime the subject comes up thereafter cringing and walking away. I see the first reaction of sharing the information openly so a society in recovery knows that half their working population may be taken offline for a few days every month and how the problem can be dealt with. I also see the men curious because no one taught them it is a grody thing. Instead, everyone in the story treats it as unnatural, even while immediately looking at breeding animals and planting farms. I was thrown out of the story because it was not in-line with previously established social aspects. In a society of gods where everyone modified their body regularly, sometimes daily, not discussing a change of body only a couple months later is unreal. 

I absolutely hated the disconnect between the world the author had built and the revert our present society’s TOXIC reaction to a bodily function.  So not only was it sexist, it made all the careful crafting which had gone before irrelevant. Learn about menstruation folks and how to present it.

For something that takes up about seven YEARS of a woman’s life, just shy of 10% of her lifespan, literature leaves it a huge hole. The topic does get addressed during some Young Adult stories, when a female is coming of age, but that is pretty much it. On rare occasions, a woman in a romance might make a decision based on her cycle – usually what clothes to wear. Other than that, the lack of period is brought up more than having a period. Between teens and fifties, women spend three-to-seven days of 21-to-35 days dealing with a messy discharge – say on average 20% of their time during the “prime” of their life. Often with side effects including, but not limited to, cramping, nausea, migraines, and bloating.

If you include menstruation, for whatever reason, remember to do it right. At least half your audience KNOWS the topic well.

And for the love of goodness, stop the stigma – it isn’t a “curse”, nor a “secret visitor”, and don’t tell men “you don’t want to know”.

I Walked into a Bar

Erin Penn Leave a comment

This month I’ve done a short series on injuries. For the editing rant, I discussed The Burn (8/13/2024) and then the writing exercise, Pain is a Character Trait (8/27/2024) centered on creating a flash where the character is dealing with the aftermath of an injury.

I also suggested a BONUS EXERCISE of documenting a grievous injury.

Back in November 2020, I walked into a bar or a bar walked into me. The wound was self-inflicted, mostly.

To do all the postal things, while I was building my strength up after my hire to help deal with the COVID packages, I bought a sturdy hand truck to keep in my minivan. I had a delivery of a sixty pound something (the post office will take up to 70 pounds), so I unhooked it and brought it to the back of my van where the package was. The ground was uneven. I lifted the package out and guided/control-dropped it onto the dolly’s footplate.

As fulcrums do, the foot plate tilted down and the frame swung forward and hit my head … hard. Really, REaLlY HaRD.

Like hit with a solid steel pipe at speed hard.

I monitored my eyes for the next two hour, crying often, while I finished my route. (There were no other people in that day as it was a holiday. I was specifically hired to cover holidays. It is a small office.) Once back in the office, the clerk and I took pictures.

This is what the injury looked like at the two to three hour mark.

Notice, very little coloration difference from normal skin. Some red-purpling from what will become bruising. Definite swelling.

And, no, I didn’t go to the doctor or hospital because no health insurance at the time. I barely had any money after months of unemployment during 2020 COVID. … Ask me my opinion about the need for universal health care. (grrrr)

At home – let’s say about five to six hours, you can see how far the knot is raised off the forehead.

Notice, still no bruising showing. I didn’t have anything but a tight knot for several days. It was more white than any other special color.

On day five, the swelling went down enough the bruised blood could flow to the closest cavity and the first spectacular bruising appeared.

Suddenly I had a black eye. I didn’t have a black eye the day before, but during the night, the swelling went down and “poof” black eye. I had no injury to the eye – you can still see the bruising at the original injury site, but the optical lobe has a lot of empty space and gravity wins.

When I went in to work that day, the boss was shocked at the eye. The raised knot didn’t raise a single fuss, other then making me take an hour of “how to prevent injuries” videos, but the black eye worried the supervisor. By this time I was healing well and could easily work, much better than the previous four days.

Again this injury was nearly four years ago at this point. I am well and healthy, and now have health insurance if I face another grievous injury.

***

Let me add: Vote for people who support universal health care come November 2024. Not having any savings or health insurance makes for some really bad life choices. Writing about this here is making me tense up and want to cry – the hopeless situation is embedded in my head more firmly then the actual injury.