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my argument to these guys: i don’t use photoshop bc it sucks so shut up !!!

disability is just a thing like anything else imo! it’s neither bad nor good, just something that is, and it can be temporary, permanent, is likely something most people will deal with. its like death or illness. not bad or good, just all part of the same thing that is life!

yeah, i don’t disagree with that— there is a lot of dehumanization of disabled folks & it’s not black & white. there’s no objective suffering scale and discussions of care should center around minimizing harm and managing conditions & are individualized as a result

dialogues comparing human disability & rights vs. animal disabilities just feel extra silly bc it’s like, apples to oranges in many ways, yknow? and anthropomorphism is something that can be quite harmful to animals since ppl will assume an animal is in pain bc a human would be, etc.

i guess i’m getting sidetracked here a bit: i feel like it’s really hard to compare human vs. animal disabilities (esp. of animals without large group sizes) in the first place bc as humans we have things like widespread tool use that widens what most would consider a disability

and as humans it’s made more complicated bc not being able to, for example, sit in a car, would be a limiting factor to daily tasks as a human but raccoons just need to be able to eat & live, really, so there’s a narrower range for disability in an animal in that way

like, to your point, disabled animal vs. disabled human are very different things, i think a person w/short spine syndrome maybe wouldn’t be in pain physically but would find themselves ostracized and find things generally inaccessible bc disability tends to refer to the ability to do daily tasks

some amount of mobility loss is present but animals adapt pretty readily and over time the body adapts to what works for us— might see more muscle in some zones vs. others, atrophy, that sort of thing. anyway i feel like in a way it’s just anthromporphisng again to assume suffering, almost?

i was basing this off of what we know about short spine syndrome in canines & their vet care, which hasn’t resulted in significant changes in pain management or anything! it’s a very rare disease so it’s not 100% that it can never lead to pain, but i guess i’d equate it more to the multi toed cats

or lifespan, generally, so i hesitate to even really say he has a disability, too. deformity doesn’t always mean disability & the social aspect of humans is unique and would lead to discrimination of a similar individual but it’s not applicable to raccoons

i also want to just add on a technical note that the deformity jimothy has is not associated with like, pain/suffering/i would not necessarily call a disability in itself? the fused vertebrae does mean that it can cause limitations in mobility but short spine syndrome doesn’t effect quality of life

ours as well! i love the regional variance on these guys. this is last year’s but i’m sure i’ll see them again soon…

thank you clyde 🫶 it just feels dumb because by all means it was not a big deal lol

maybe i just feel weird & frustrated in part that i can’t lift over 10lb for almost 3 months at this point & i just feel kind of useless about it all. plus the pain sits differently after this surgery & im not used to it & i just. aaaaaughhhh.

in a weird way glad that it happened tho bc that’s how i found out the incision wasn’t as healed as we thought. atrophy means the skin & flesh in the area didn’t really provide granulation tissue to create scarring etc. so it just kinda… failed. but it would’ve failed similarly at a later time, too

surgery is traumatic even if it’s just a 20 minute suture repair, the whole situation is traumatic, really, just feels weird that i’m having a harder time emotionally after this one vs. the actual “we removed organs & found out you had some diseases behind ur pain” one. but i guess that’s how it is

yeah! it was not super traumatic, just… very very frustrating. i’m not against advocating for myself but i feel like i only get taken seriously if i am crying or visibly upset… which is not from pain or anxiety, just frustration. my surgical site split open & i was bleeding for four hours!!!

i am never going back to that ER, the entire hospital experience was pretty miserable throughout and i am currently trying to last minute get the “i will die without these” pills they forgot to prescribe me 😩

if i have more complications im going to old yeller myself

gonna tell my kids this is the infinity gauntlet & infinity stones or whatever. anyway, i’m fine, i was not in mortal danger, or even pain, just bleeding a lot. surgery took like 30 minutes, prep literally took 4x the time. i was then trapped in the ER for almost 24 hours but im free now holy shit.