I am kind of freaked out right now, because it’s become obvious that no, I am really not imagining some visual disturbances. Not noticeable all the time–or super serious yet–but yes it’s a thing.
It’s not going to improve on its own, but progress. And I don’t know of much to do about it.
Especially after getting dropped from ophthalmology (on the verge of needing laser treatment for retinopathy over a year ago), basically because poor accessibility and the support available made me miss/have to reschedule too many appointments. And without GP access, for assorted reasons including the same. Even if I could make a GP appointment and get there with communications support/general backup that’s just not available, I have no reason to believe they would listen to me about it even with the dx’ed retinopathy. Particularly after that totally unsolicited “mental health review” letter a while back.
Not going to vent much more right now, and it’s probably time to try and distract myself for a while. But, it’s overwhelming. And nobody would deserve any of it for being disabled. Or any other reason, including “laziness”, “being silly”, “being weird af”, “making people not want to help you” (thanks Mom!), etc. Yes, that includes me.
this is fantastic now children in Puerto Rico wont be able to receive the education they deserve thanks to their messed up government
Its even worse than that. I’m living through it. Not only are schools closing, hospitals are collapsing. Only around 9% of the island has electricity and it comes and goes at times.
People are dying in hospitals because of lack of diesel for the generators, a lot of the water is now infected, there are disease outbreaks and scareceness of food. I am safe, but many are not.
Some have water, others don’t. We need help. Sending money would be helpful but what would help even more would be sending water filters, filtering water bottles, food, medicine, if somehow possible diesel.
All of you reblogging this news helps, but what we need is physical help. If you can’t, then spread the word, but God if you can send supplies… Please… PLEASE do. We are dying. Help us, help us save ourselves. Help us save our people. Help us save out ISLAND.
If you’re not in a position to ship or transport useful items to the island (which is sure as heck the case for me in New Zealand) then the best thing you can do is give money to a reputable relief organisation operating in the area.
Mariful Islam plants and harvests rice in his rural village in Bangladesh. Every September marks the start of a two-to-three-month period when the rice is just growing. “There’s no work for me to do,” says Islam. Which means he and his wife and their toddler son have to get by on the family’s meager savings.
“We have a lot problems getting enough food,” says Islam. Instead of three meals a day, they cut back to two — skipping lunch. And they mostly eat rice. There is practically no meat or fish. Not even for his son.
At times, Islam had considered heading to the capital city of Dhaka, about a seven-hour bus ride away. Maybe he could find a job there to tide the family over.
But he always concluded it was too risky. He didn’t have the money for the bus ticket. So he would need to borrow it from a local moneylender, who would charge an exorbitant interest rate of about 10 percent to 15 percent a month. And Islam couldn’t be sure he would even get a job. After all, he had never been to the capital. Not once. What if it didn’t work out? The family would be ruined.
Beginning in 2008, Mobarak and various collaborators set up a series of experiments. During the monga season, they give farmworkers a one-time, very low-interest loan — it’s now about $19 — that they can use to get to the city.
“We chose that amount because it pays for the round-trip bus fare — plus a few days of food,” says Mobarak.
The result: The villagers who’ve been offered the help have been about 60 percent more likely to try their luck in a city. In virtually all cases, it has been the men in a family who’ve made the journey. And once there, the vast majority of them have succeeded in getting a temporary job — mainly pulling rickshaws. Most significantly, with the extra money, their families have consumed an average of at least 36 percent more food. That is a much better track record than the traditional food-for-work or food distribution programs. “About five times as cost-effective,” notes Mobarak.
Mobarak has also found that the loan is particularly enticing when offered to the bulk of residents in a given village — as opposed to just a few individuals.
Mariful Islam, the farmhand, is a case in point. This fall, both he and a neighbor were targeted in the experiment. “My neighbor said, ‘I’m going, so you can join me,’ ” says Islam. “That gave me the courage to do it.”
Migrating as a group has a lot of benefits, notes Mobarak. The men can live together and share contacts to potential employers. And if someone in the group can’t find a job, he can contribute in another way — say cooking the group’s meals — and the others will share their earnings with him.
Perhaps the most gratifying result of his experiments, says Mobarak, is a finding that came “as a real surprise for me.”
“Three years later, we go back and survey the exact same households, and what you observe is that the migration rate remains significantly higher in the subsequent seasons,” he says. In other words, people continue to leave for the city each monga season even without the low-interest loans.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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