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Dolfan in NYC

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On 3/25/2022 at 3:18 PM, Log said:

Edit: "Hang in there"??!?!!  Jesus.  Could I be more generic.  Maybe I can send you a poster with a kitten hanging from a branch? 

You showed them some love, man.  That's what's important.

Greetings from graveyard shift, dudes and ladies.  Nothing is terribly wrong with me other than I may now be starting to show the signs of mild hypertension.  I'll get the final verdict when I go in for my annual check-up.  Hypertension might explain why my migraines have gotten bad over the last couple of months.

If it is hypertension, hopefully I will be able to control it with diet but I am not afraid of taking meds if that is the only alternative.  I've got a kid in college that I would like to walk down the aisle during her wedding one day and it would be a damn shame if I died of a stroke before the end of MCU Phase 4.

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8 hours ago, Tabe said:

Because my car getting destroyed wasn't enough:

Got a letter from Kia that my wife's Sportage has been recalled. Electrical issue that can cause the car to catch fire. Except... no parts so they can't fix it yet. The letter doesn't say to not drive the car but does say to NOT PUT IT NEAR ANY STRUCTURES OR OTHER VEHICLES. So.......... don't drive it? 

I called Kia to find out WTF I'm supposed to do with a car they're basically telling me too drive and the first person I spoke to literally said DON'T DRIVE THE CAR. So I ask WTF and get passed around. And they basically say I'm SOL. 

Called the Kia dealer. They wouldn't help. 

Called the dealer we actually bought the car from, reminded them we've bought 3 cars from them and asked them to help. They basically said they'd be happy to sell us another car. 

I realize the odds are pretty long on anything happening but it only takes once, right? Besides, I know a guy whose house burned down because his car caught fire in their garage while they slept. 

So now I've got a car my wife refuses to drive besides my own car being destroyed. 

Sigh... 

p.s. There's actually a lawsuit over this issue that I hope to join. 

Wow, man, that's some bullshit.  The fact that dealerships want nothing to do with it and that Kia isn't footing the bill to tow the car to a dealership is insane.  I've never had a whole car recalled but any time I've had a parts recall or repair notice, the dealership of my choice had to fix that shit for free regardless of whether I bought the car there (I didn't).  Yeah, get on that lawsuit.

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1 hour ago, J.T. said:

You showed them some love, man.  That's what's important.

Greetings from graveyard shift, dudes and ladies.  Nothing is terribly wrong with me other than I may now be starting to show the signs of mild hypertension.  I'll get the final verdict when I go in for my annual check-up.  Hypertension might explain why my migraines have gotten bad over the last couple of months.

If it is hypertension, hopefully I will be able to control it with diet but I am not afraid of taking meds if that is the only alternative.  I've got a kid in college that I would like to walk down the aisle during her wedding one day and it would be a damn shame if I died of a stroke before the end of MCU Phase 4.

Here if you need to talk via PM, Jamie. Offer stands for y'all as well. Paul xxx.

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1 hour ago, J.T. said:

Greetings from graveyard shift, dudes and ladies.  Nothing is terribly wrong with me other than I may now be starting to show the signs of mild hypertension.  I'll get the final verdict when I go in for my annual check-up.  Hypertension might explain why my migraines have gotten bad over the last couple of months.

If it is hypertension, hopefully I will be able to control it with diet but I am not afraid of taking meds if that is the only alternative.  I've got a kid in college that I would like to walk down the aisle during her wedding one day and it would be a damn shame if I died of a stroke before the end of MCU Phase 4.

Just as someone who has a long family history of hypertension and has been dealing with it myself for the last year... they may start you on meds just to get things under control while you work on your diet. For Mom and myself, we've both been able to take less medication after making changes to what we eat, but it's a balancing act. Good luck!

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1 hour ago, JLSigman said:

Just as someone who has a long family history of hypertension and has been dealing with it myself for the last year... they may start you on meds just to get things under control while you work on your diet. For Mom and myself, we've both been able to take less medication after making changes to what we eat, but it's a balancing act. Good luck!

Well done, Jen and Jen's Mum xxx.

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Yeah, I am going to be seeking out a PCP this year. I had one back ~2017 or so but I was going to go in 2020 again and the pandemic blew that up so now I'm off my old one's list. We have a family history and when I self-test, even despite losing 35 pounds and trying some diet changes, it's still pretty high. I just have to find a new one. Got the kids to think about.

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I don't recall if I've posted about my wife, who suffers from several (possibly inter-related) chronic illnesses that are/can be extremely difficult to diagnose and treat. Anyway, one of the more serious ones for a while was gastroparesis coupled with colonic inertia and pelvic floor dysfunction; basically, her entire GI tract moved very slow, so she was unable to eat much and when she did it could take days to pass, and when she did finally poop (sometimes after 8-10 days or longer) it was extremely painful. She lost almost 60 pounds over the course of 6 months, and since she started at 165 (at 5'7") she essentially got to a point of being underweight and malnourished.

Back in July 2020, she got to the point where the only treatment was an ileostomy, where her ileum (the distal portion of the small intestine) was detached from the colon (large intestine) and placed through a hole (aka a stoma) in her abdomen. In other words, her waste passes from her small intestine, into a bag attached to the outside of her abdomen near her navel. She poops in a bag. It made a huge difference, even if inconvenient at times. She was able to eat more, have less pain, gained some weight.

In November of 2020, she had the first stage of "completion", where they removed her colon completely (since it wasn't attached to the digestive tract and wasn't going to be reversed), leaving a small rectal stump. Now, while there isn't anymore fecal matter passing through, the rectum still produces mucus, which could become painful build-up, and with her pelvic flood dysfunction was difficult to pass. There is also potential for polyps and even rectal cancer. So a couple of months ago, she and her surgeon made the decision to do a full "completion", where they will remove her rectal stump and sew the anus shut. The colloquial term is a "Barbie butt" for obvious reasons. The recovery is 3-5 days in the hospital, followed by 6-12 weeks at home (plus a visit to have stitches removed) during which sitting will be extremely uncomfortable/painful.

The anxiety has been building the past week as the day approached. The surgery was supposed to be scheduled for tomorrow, April 6th. But yesterday afternoon she got a call from the surgeon's office apologizing profusely as they had accidentally scheduled the surgery for Thursday, April 7th, and were not able to get that changed. Nothing we can do about it, and I had already arranged with my work to take most of the week off to be with her in the hospital, and to work from home for the recovery period. But still, another day of anxiety (and another day of the Ba wave) isn't helpful.

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5 hours ago, JLSigman said:

Just as someone who has a long family history of hypertension and has been dealing with it myself for the last year... they may start you on meds just to get things under control while you work on your diet. For Mom and myself, we've both been able to take less medication after making changes to what we eat, but it's a balancing act. Good luck!

It will be hard.  I am not into balancing.  If any man were guilty of the crime of loving the taste of salty food, it is me.  

I am smart enough to know when to make better decisions and take care of myself, though.  I will miss Worcestershire Sauce something awful.

@The NaturalI know you are there for me, bud.  You always have been.

@JLoweYou are in my thoughts, man.  Best wishes to you and your family.  You have peeps here like me who care about you as a person so if all we can do is be here for you to unburden, post your thoughts and get stuff off of your chest.

@Matt DI hear ya.  It is funny how something to look forward do adjusts your outlook.  I have a daughter so I have a college graduation and maybe a wedding to attend and I can't be there if I don't take care of myself.  I am glad you and I figured that out.  So many men in my family did not.

@Craig HYou have a kid, too, so I would say Yes, take it seriously.

Edited by J.T.
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2 hours ago, JLowe said:

Back in July 2020, she got to the point where the only treatment was an ileostomy, where her ileum (the distal portion of the small intestine) was detached from the colon (large intestine) and placed through a hole (aka a stoma) in her abdomen. In other words, her waste passes from her small intestine, into a bag attached to the outside of her abdomen near her navel. She poops in a bag. It made a huge difference, even if inconvenient at times. She was able to eat more, have less pain, gained some weight.

In November of 2020, she had the first stage of "completion", where they removed her colon completely (since it wasn't attached to the digestive tract and wasn't going to be reversed), leaving a small rectal stump. Now, while there isn't anymore fecal matter passing through, the rectum still produces mucus, which could become painful build-up, and with her pelvic flood dysfunction was difficult to pass. There is also potential for polyps and even rectal cancer. So a couple of months ago, she and her surgeon made the decision to do a full "completion", where they will remove her rectal stump and sew the anus shut. The colloquial term is a "Barbie butt" for obvious reasons. The recovery is 3-5 days in the hospital, followed by 6-12 weeks at home (plus a visit to have stitches removed) during which sitting will be extremely uncomfortable/painful.

 

Hello from a fellow ileostomate! I had my large intestine evicted in 1998 because of ulcerative colitis and they did the whole thing in one go. Make sure you have one of those donut pillows/cushions to help keep her off of her tailbone as much as possible. Good luck to her.

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4 minutes ago, JLSigman said:

Hello from a fellow ileostomate! I had my large intestine evicted in 1998 because of ulcerative colitis and they did the whole thing in one go. Make sure you have one of those donut pillows/cushions to help keep her off of her tailbone as much as possible. Good luck to her.

Thank you! Dena says there are a lot of y'all out there! She got herself a waffle pad to sit on, and an inflatable thing for bed (we have a hospital type bed in the guest room for her for such situations). 

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2 hours ago, JLowe said:

I don't recall if I've posted about my wife, who suffers from several (possibly inter-related) chronic illnesses that are/can be extremely difficult to diagnose and treat. Anyway, one of the more serious ones for a while was gastroparesis coupled with colonic inertia and pelvic floor dysfunction; basically, her entire GI tract moved very slow, so she was unable to eat much and when she did it could take days to pass, and when she did finally poop (sometimes after 8-10 days or longer) it was extremely painful. She lost almost 60 pounds over the course of 6 months, and since she started at 165 (at 5'7") she essentially got to a point of being underweight and malnourished.

Back in July 2020, she got to the point where the only treatment was an ileostomy, where her ileum (the distal portion of the small intestine) was detached from the colon (large intestine) and placed through a hole (aka a stoma) in her abdomen. In other words, her waste passes from her small intestine, into a bag attached to the outside of her abdomen near her navel. She poops in a bag. It made a huge difference, even if inconvenient at times. She was able to eat more, have less pain, gained some weight.

In November of 2020, she had the first stage of "completion", where they removed her colon completely (since it wasn't attached to the digestive tract and wasn't going to be reversed), leaving a small rectal stump. Now, while there isn't anymore fecal matter passing through, the rectum still produces mucus, which could become painful build-up, and with her pelvic flood dysfunction was difficult to pass. There is also potential for polyps and even rectal cancer. So a couple of months ago, she and her surgeon made the decision to do a full "completion", where they will remove her rectal stump and sew the anus shut. The colloquial term is a "Barbie butt" for obvious reasons. The recovery is 3-5 days in the hospital, followed by 6-12 weeks at home (plus a visit to have stitches removed) during which sitting will be extremely uncomfortable/painful.

The anxiety has been building the past week as the day approached. The surgery was supposed to be scheduled for tomorrow, April 6th. But yesterday afternoon she got a call from the surgeon's office apologizing profusely as they had accidentally scheduled the surgery for Thursday, April 7th, and were not able to get that changed. Nothing we can do about it, and I had already arranged with my work to take most of the week off to be with her in the hospital, and to work from home for the recovery period. But still, another day of anxiety (and another day of the Ba wave) isn't helpful.

Jeezus, that all sounds awful.  At least there's a way forward, it sounds like.  Best wishes to your wife (and you!)

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34 minutes ago, J.T. said:

It will be hard.  I am not into balancing.  If any man were guilty of the crime of loving the taste of salty food, it is me.  

I am smart enough to know when to make better decisions and take care of myself, though.  I will miss Worcestershire Sauce something awful.

 

If you haven't already, you might want to look at having a sleep study done.  I resisted for years and wish I hadn't.  My results basically came out as "why haven't you died in your sleep yet?" 

The CPAP bugged me for a couple days, but now I don't notice it really.  Got my BP down 30 points, to well within the "safe" range, just by doing that.  

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I also have a cpap that I’ll probably need to continue using even after I lose weight. My throat opening is apparently very small and when they did the sleep study, I had something like 60 or more events per hour. I actually recently bought a new cpap out of pocket because Phillips dragged their feet on the recall of the Dreamstation machine. I bought a Resmed device and I like it a lot. More than the Phillips one anyway.

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To add to the sleep test discussion, when I took mine back in September, they actually gave me a device I could take home so I could sleep in my iwn bed. So if the prospect of spending the night in a "nearby medical facility" (god damn pal!) doesn't sound appealing you could ask about a home test instead. 

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Just to add to the CPAP discussion, if you think there is a chance you have sleep apnea go get a sleep study done ASAP.  I had no idea I had sleep apnea until I ended up in the heart center with atrial fibrillation on my birthday in 2017.  The doctors determined I had undiagnosed sleep apnea which caused the AFib.  I've used a CPAP machine ever since, I won't even take a nap without it.  I can't stress this enough, get checked out if you think there is chance you have sleep apnea, you don't want it to cause AFib.  I was back at the heart center about a month ago because I had a second bout of AFib.  Sadly, once it happens it will likely reoccur at various points for the rest of your life.  Almost five years between bouts is a good outcome and hopefully I stay with the episodes being that far apart(or farther, preferably).  They had to shock my heart back into rhythm both times, which is fine, but if it becomes a more regular occurrence I'm looking at medication or worse, an ablation of the heart, where they burn the problem spot with a catheter to stop issue.

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I'm thankfully not at risk for afib. Also, thanks to the glorious technology of the Apple Watch, I'm able to check my heart rhythm whenever I want.

With my cpap, I hated it at first. I would wake up feeling hungover. All of the talk of it giving you a more restful sleep seemed like bullcrap. I just had to get used to having one. I still don't buy into it giving me more restful sleep, but I know when I sleep without it, like if I fall asleep on the couch or anywhere else my throat will be sore from breathing through my mouth. I actually can't think of the last time I went to bed without using it because I bring it with me on vacations and stuff like that.

I suppose this is where I could rant about TSA being pieces of crap. I'll just say that when I flew out to LAX, they had me empty my ENTIRE backpack and put everything into separate trays. Even my phone. So a tray for my cpap, another for a freaking mouse and stylus, another for my USB harddrive, another for my earbuds, etc. I think they may have just been messing with me because another friend of mine flew recently and they told him to just put as much into one tray as possible.

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Put down my 5 year old shih-tzu today. The growth/tumor/whatever on her throat had grown so big it was the size of a softball and causing her to have breathing/eating/drinking/swallowing issues. She was basically skin and bones now. If she laid down on her stomach, the tumor would prop her entire head up, that's how big it was. She was still a little playful, but not eating or drinking or sleeping isn't a way to live, so I decided it was time.

This hurts, a lot. Her litter is apparently cursed, since I originally had her sister but she died very, very young - before I even got to take her home - and then I picked her out. My other two dogs are confused right now, but they've been through this twice before already. It's sweet, but also heartbreaking, to see a dog mourn another dog.

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14 hours ago, Casey said:

Put down my 5 year old shih-tzu today. The growth/tumor/whatever on her throat had grown so big it was the size of a softball and causing her to have breathing/eating/drinking/swallowing issues. She was basically skin and bones now. If she laid down on her stomach, the tumor would prop her entire head up, that's how big it was. She was still a little playful, but not eating or drinking or sleeping isn't a way to live, so I decided it was time.

This hurts, a lot. Her litter is apparently cursed, since I originally had her sister but she died very, very young - before I even got to take her home - and then I picked her out. My other two dogs are confused right now, but they've been through this twice before already. It's sweet, but also heartbreaking, to see a dog mourn another dog.

So sorry, @Casey. You did the right thing. Pets are family. Pets are family that are better than most of the family I have. I miss my Rayven so much and Ralfie both put to sleep last year. Thinking of you.

Edited by The Natural
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On 4/6/2022 at 2:12 PM, Casey said:

Put down my 5 year old shih-tzu today. The growth/tumor/whatever on her throat had grown so big it was the size of a softball and causing her to have breathing/eating/drinking/swallowing issues. She was basically skin and bones now. If she laid down on her stomach, the tumor would prop her entire head up, that's how big it was. She was still a little playful, but not eating or drinking or sleeping isn't a way to live, so I decided it was time.

This hurts, a lot. Her litter is apparently cursed, since I originally had her sister but she died very, very young - before I even got to take her home - and then I picked her out. My other two dogs are confused right now, but they've been through this twice before already. It's sweet, but also heartbreaking, to see a dog mourn another dog.

I'm so sorry.  You made the right decision but it's still really hard.  And, yeah, it hurts.  It'll be a long, long time before I'm "right" again after putting down my pup a month ago.

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Thinking of my Auntie Audrey who passed a year ago from coronavirus and Sheena, her daughter on her Birthday. Bereavement sucks any time but it's something when it's your Birthday. I lost Auntie Margaret on my Birthday but wasn't told till a few days after as my parents and sister wanted me to have a great Birthday. Still think of Auntie Margaret on the 6th of March.

Edited by The Natural
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I've got a lot of family on my mother's side that I don't know. My uncle had three kids (before he adopted two others from another marriage), all girls, and they procreated like rabbits. One of my cousins apparently had a daughter who is 13 and they apparently tried to commit suicide, or claimed to want to and told some friends, so the friends snitched. They got thrown in a psych ward for a couple days. I thought it was just some typical teenage shit but it turns out this person is trans and was being bullied. 

I thought I didn't have any stakes in this because I'm not close to the cousins, don't know the kid, don't know the family even really, but now I wish I was closer so I could be the uncle I could be and offer the advice I can. It breaks my heart. 

Edited by Curt McGirt
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Mass shooting on the subway in Brooklyn. ?  

Sounds like the asshole waited for a long stretch on the train between stations and tossed a smoke grenade and started shooting.  5 shot, 8 more injured.  Thankfully it does not appear anyone was killed.   

Brooklyn (and everyone NYC) DVDVR crew... stay safe out there. 

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