More Recs! Wheee! Oh, and a bit about my health there at the end

[ceredwensirius]

I got behind on my reading this week for the games but I'm all caught up and I come bearing recs!!

TEAM AU
FIC
Some Dream By Day "Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." - TE Lawrence.

One of my most favorite of genre's, the non-magic AU. In this, both boys have miserable home lives, have had to make compromise after compromise, and long desperately to get away, to seek a different future than the one their respective families want for them. They each have to make hard choices and leave things, people, and other dreams behind if they want to be together. Beautifully written, smoking hot, and heart-breaking throughout.

Sodom and Gainsborough Non magical AU - Remus Lupin is a miserable priest, caught up in a huge scandal. When Sirius Black (old flame and now astrophysicist) walks back into his life after 10 years, he finds himself getting a little more than he bargained for.

At over 55,000 words, this is a truly mammoth work of fanfiction for what is essentially a one-shot, and every word so completely worth it. I really don't want to give anything away, but it is one of the most satisfying stories I've ever read. The characters are drawn with an unflinching eye at how harsh real life can be, what the toll it can take on a person's psyche, but the story is told in such a real way, and with such humor and honesty. Just an awesome read, so go read it already!

Men of Six O'Clock Having been rescued from revolutionary France during the Terror, Remus Lupin cannot sleep.

Gorgeous, dreamy piece of historical fiction. I just love the style of writing in this and the atmosphere the author creates and maintains.

Storm in a Teacup Recognition of our mortality, or that of the one we love, can be terrifying. And when Harry Potter is six-and-a-half years old, it threatens to tear his family apart.

This is another very human, very real story. Touching, poignant and sad, but also hopeful.

Bridges I Have Burned Writing isn’t Sirius Black’s career of choice and he is struggling to meet the deadline for his upcoming novel. The new man that suddenly appears in his life provides a welcome distraction, but there is something mysterious about him that Sirius cannot point his finger at. For better or worse, the ultimate revelation will change both their lives. (Non-magic AU)

Excellent use of the first person narrative in this. Sirius is a very flawed man who knows himself to be a sham and a user and put the love of his life on the line for a filthy bag of silver coins.

How Soon Is Now? Four snapshots of the life of Remus Lupin, a young striking miner, and the start of his relationship with Sirius Black, a grammar school boy and son of a local councillor.

This is a quick read but the author manages to touch on some very heavy themes in this beautiful piece of historical fiction.

ART
• Flight From Grimmauld Keep Imprisoned within the old fortress of legend, Grimmauld Keep, Remus has been left to die. A freak earthquake destroys his cell and gives him a chance to escape, which he takes immediately. But in his bid for freedom, he discovers another prisoner--and Remus cannot, in good conscience, leave the other young man behind.

I really love this piece. The color and movement just gorgeous.


Team Canon
Fic
Absurd Joy Sirius bartends in a Muggle bar, winter after graduation, and Remus spends his Saturday afternoons smoking on a high stool, drinking rum and tossing peanuts at him when he thinks he isn’t looking.

Very moving with a lovely use of imagery.

Dark Hours Times are growing darker. Order missions are failing and the body count is rising. But Remus knows he'd be able to make it through all that, if it weren't for this.

Incredibly moving, must read fic.

Freedom Is Mine The Marauders go to Liverpool on the summer before sixth year. Peter is a stud, James realizes Lily is his true love, and Remus and Sirius share some things.

Lovely, happy mad-cap adventure!

Art
Seeking Shelter Sirius' last moments before the meeting that would inevitably put him in Azkaban.

Very sad, moving piece.

Unrelated to recs or fanfiction, I met with my PCP and the surgeon. My surgery is scheduled for the 5th of November. Surgeons are funny breed of doctor. I've had more than my share of experience with doctors thanks to years of battling Tom's immunological neuropathy. After a few hard won lessons I learned never to go into a meeting with a specialist with less than all the facts you could possibly dig off the internet. In my case this is a pretty simple thing, there's not as much mystery to gall stones as there is to an immune response that deteriorates the nerves. Still, I know my own stats pretty well.

Now, 15 years ago I would have been surprised that my surgeon hadn't read the whole effing chart. 10 years ago I would have had outrage over it. Now? I expect it. He's a surgeon; he's not in medicine. I've had surgeons say this to me on more than one occasion, casually, as though I should know this already. So he does his 15 second abdominal examination which I suspect is mostly for show and to get a look at the area he'll be cutting than to actually palpate my organs. I expect that, too. We talk about my symptoms, how it came on fast and that no, I had not eaten within minutes of the attack and nothing greasy at all that day. So then he starts talking about how he doesn't think I'm a good candidate for surgery and that we need to start thinking about what else it could be. That the gall stones were really just so small and blah, blah, blah. I wait for him to stop listening to the sound of his voice. Then I say, you know my lipase levels were up 2,713, right?  I get a blank look that turns into shock and surprise.

Oh, he says. Oh, you had pancreatitis! Well, it definitely has to come out then, yes.

Glad we're all on the same page.

So, my surgery is set for the 5th of November. It'd be nice if it were sooner but doctors tend to be booked, particularly surgeons. And no, the fact that he hadn't read my whole chart doesn't alarm me. He has a nurse to do that for him and she didn't cover everything with him. He's a cutter, a well educated, well trained, auto-mechanic. Once we were all talking about the same thing he struck me as very competent.

Comments

[remuslives23.livejournal.com]

Surgeons really are the same the world round. One came and poked at me and muttered something about my weight not making me a good candidate and how I should lose some before I have an op... My lovely nurse (a wonderful man who looked after me in emergency then asked to nurse me when he did a shift in intensive care) shoved my chart under his nose, rattled off some details about my lipase levels and the ultrasound that showed the size of the stones, the fact I was in INTENSIVE CARE WITH SEVERE PANCREATITIS, and he says, 'Oh, well, that's different then. We really need to get the gall bladder out.' Well, duh! I'm glad they've given you a date.

[ceredwensirius.livejournal.com]

I think that surgeons are a special class of ditzy in the medical profession, but any time you see a specialist or have an ongoing problem you should keep on top of things. At least this has been my experience. Part of the trouble with Tom's illness is that the treatment is just so damn expensive. He gets an infusion of human immunoglobin every 6 weeks, but 10-15 years ago he was getting that treatment every 1 to 2 weeks to the tune of fourteen thousand US dollars. The price has come down since then but it is still damn expensive. So, what you have is a situation where the insurance company is having a collective aneurysm over the cost and so make the doctors jump through hoops to defend the treatment, which, doctors get tired of. Then, add to that, back then and sensitive only to Tom's situation, not medicine in general, was the outbreak of mad cow disease. Huge (like entire) batches of blood products were destroyed in a wave of hysteria which meant it was a hard drug to get. It was hell, and even after the supplies were on the rise again the doctors were jittery about giving it to Tom. I had to research as best I could what the supply levels were like nation wide, state wide and locally and keep on top of it so that when the doctors balked I could back their sorry asses into a corner, and did.

So, long story long, I have a way too much experience with doctors.

[remuslives23.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I live in Australia when it comes to the health system. The doctors just say 'here, go and have this treatment', and that's all there is to it - I never really think about the cost of the treatments. I forget that the US medical situation is different and that you have insurance and costs to think about. We do have private health insurance as well which means you can have a doctor of your choice in the hospital of your choice and often get seen quicker if you're a non-urgent case, but that's on top of a public system which costs nothing for citizens.

You do have to be assertive with doctors, though. My youngest had horrid sores on her toes - it looked like her toes had been dipped in hot water. I went to three doctors who all told me they were infected mozzie bites and nothing to worry about before I found one who listened to me rant then asked me, 'What do you think they are?' I told him I thought they were school sores, and he said that's exactly what they were. By that time, the child needed two courses of antibiotics to heal them because they'd gotten so inflamed. Should have asserted myself sooner.

Ah,guilt. The mother's constant companion.

[ceredwensirius.livejournal.com]

I'm lucky that I have, actually, pretty fucking fantastic insurance. The entire reason I quit school and got a crappy job with the state police as a clerk was so that I could get that insurance for Tom. I moved up the ladder pretty quickly because I'm sharp, but it wasn't what I envisioned myself doing. I count myself fortunate that eleven years later I've more than quadrupled my yearly salary and do a job I find challenging and interesting. I have half a degree which is the same as no degree and started out as a Clerk and am now am a Business Systems Analyst (nice title for "likes to muck about with computers and data"). Still, I'm no Cultural Anthropologist, am I? (I actually do not know what I was thinking about, looking back on it - what was I going to do with such a degree?) But, the road to this point was hard and depending on the day I'm not always sure it was worth it. I gave up my life for someone else who was singularly ungrateful.

You really, really do. No matter what it is about. You have to be pushy and you have to make yourself heard and you have to be calm and logical and have reasons why you think what you do or you get written off as uneducated and hysterical. It's awful.

Now, tell me, what are school sores and what are mozzie bites?

[remuslives23.livejournal.com]

Sorry. I really do forget we speak a foreign language here sometimes. :)

Mozzies = mosquitos.

School sores = horrid blistering sores kids get sometimes. They do start as insect bites or cuts that get a germ in them and turn into awful sores that spread like wildfire. Kids usually get them around school age and they move from one kid to another in the classrooms ridiculously fast. They are also bloody impossible to get parent's to take seriously as they don't get how fast they spread or how awful they can be. (I worked in child care and, I swear, at least once a month we'd have to do a massive disinfection because of a school sore outbreak that a parent didn't see to.)

[ceredwensirius.livejournal.com]

Oh! That is adorable that you call them mozzies! Though they aren't really adorable creatures, but the name! That is so cute!

I wonder if it is a climate thing. Well, no, you're in Australia and I'm in Texas and hot as hell pretty much equals hot as hell no matter how you slice it. I just don't ever remember hearing about something like that. I don't think I got anything like that as a kid, granted that was a really long time ago. Could it be a regional thing? Or have I just been missing out on all the parental discussions because I'm not a parent?

[remuslives23.livejournal.com]

Aussies shorten or lengthen everything. You give your child a name you think can't possibly be shortened into anything eg Sean. We will call him 'Seany' or 'Seanmiester' or 'Seaninator' or something equally as ridiculous. Or they'll call him 'S'. And sometimes, they do both

*refuses to disclose her lengthened high school nick name although the shortened name is obvious*

Is Texas a dry heat? I think it's a tropical thing. Humidity related. We get that awful wet heat summer here where you are soaked with sweat all day and never dry off. *shudders at imminent hot weather*

[ceredwensirius.livejournal.com]

*is insanely curious and thinks this is utterly unfair considering all the fests she has either been bullied into agreeing to do or will be in the near future - also doesn't much care one thing has nothing to do with the other*

*wheedles* C'mon, tell me! I bet it's precious. I'll tell you what my German grandmother called me. *bats eyes*

Not in this part of Texas. They have a dry heat up in the panhandle to the North, but here in Austin we are close to the hill country and which means close to a lot of lakes which means as the mercury rises so does precipitation. We sometimes have 80 - 90% humidity or more and temperatures that reach over 100 by the end of May and don't come back down until mid September. It's October which means the weather is simply lovely right now. This month and April are my two favorite months, the weather is absolutely perfect.

[remuslives23.livejournal.com]

*is going to regret this*

Joodles. Seriously. One of my best mates (how I missed he was gay after giving me this nickname, I'll never know) decided this was going to be my nickname and it stuck for my two remaining years of schooling. I could have killed him when other people started calling me by it.

*is going to hide under bed sheets until 1992 is nothing but a blur once again*

[ceredwensirius.livejournal.com]

THAT IS ADORABLE! THAT IS CUTE! OMG!

*drags Joodles out from under the bed sheets wearing an irrepressible grin*

No hiding! That is too precious for words! I love it!

Alright, my grandmother had a hard time saying Patti without making me wince. Because it sound like Petty. So, she went with my middle name which is Elizabeth, shortened it to Beth and, okay, in German, to make a name diminutive you either add a "che" sound to the end of (spelled cia I think, the 'c' in German is sort of hard and soft at the same time, it's like a hard whispery sound forced between your teeth) or you add "lein" to the end of the name. My mother was always Christalein. I was Betia, which, when pronounced, sounds like Betcha, like, You Betcha! Not really that much better than Petty. I was screwed either way.

[museme87.livejournal.com]

I'm so behind on my rs_games reading. What I've read though, I've really enjoyed. I'm always stunned at the quality of work among r/s fans. I think Team Canon is going to win though. ;)

Also, thanks for the health update! Good to know that the surgery is scheduled. :) I would have definitely been a little scared if my surgeon didn't know the whole situation. ><

[ceredwensirius.livejournal.com]

You poor dear, you're simply deluded. Must be all that time spent on the other team. Team AU is totally going to cross that finish line first!

Nah, not worried. Surgeons are special class of doctors. He relied on his nurse instead of knowing my chart and it wasn't a nurse who had been caring for me the whole weekend. I was in a very classy private practice surgeons office and they are just different. All there is to it.

[werewolfsfan.livejournal.com]

I'm sad to say that I'm not surprised by your experience with your new surgeon. But how are you feeling? What does your doctor say about waiting until November for this surgery? Is that safe or could you be subject to another attack?

And what does Lutzi think about all of this?

[ceredwensirius.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling great actually. I've had no pain and I'm paying attention to it, you know? I already don't eat a lot of greasy food, but then I wasn't before. Could I be subject to another attack before the surgery? Absolutely. All that has to happen is for one of those little stones to lodge itself in the ducts between the gall bladder and the pancreas, so I am being very mindful of how and what I feel in my body.

Lutzi says he thinks the sliced ham in the fridge is faaaaaar too fatty and that I should give it to him.

[remuslives23.livejournal.com]

Apple juice is brilliant, apparently. Don't know why, but every doctor I spoke to told me to drink it.

[ceredwensirius.livejournal.com]

Apple juice, really? I've not heard that but I go shopping for the week today or tomorrow and I'll pick some up! Thanks!

[remuslives23.livejournal.com]

You can check out 'gall bladder' friendly foods on the internet. It's a short list, but for the short term, tolerable. :)

[werewolfsfan.livejournal.com]

I LOVE ham! I just knew Lutzi and I were meant for each other....... when can I meet him again?

[ceredwensirius.livejournal.com]

I know, I know, I am awful about not taking pictures of him. I'll see what I can drum up for you this weekend. I'll see if I can't figure out what I did with my camera.