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Random Raves νγ: Pizza!
- Thread starter Takhisis
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Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
AH HAH HAH HAH INFINITE FREE MONEY
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
CAKE FOR BREAKFAST! NO BEDTIME!
And the all-capitals posting! You sound like Donald Trump, who's a fine gentleman and legitimate president of the US unless you believe the MAINSTREAM MEDIA who conspire against him. I'm not him, but I think he's very rich and handsome and manly and I'd date Ivanka if she weren't my- I mean, his- daughter, with a good cup of COVFEFE after a good, like, steak with ketchup and fries, you know, like a decent, RED-BLOODED AMERICAN, not one of the Jew-replaced ones, I'm not saying it, it's the media saying it, and anyway you were to Central America so you know how it is down there, it's like Tucker says it is, right?
You're wsy too coherent and so your joke FAILS.
No one's going to believe you.
Ajidica
High Quality Person
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- Nov 29, 2006
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- 22,412
I don't have any objections to paying taxes. What I don't like is paying quarterly estimates, so I skip those and just pay the penalty for doing so.
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
I can understand the rave part as the process can be a pain in the behind but I'd be ranting if I'd had to do either.
The spring is here, finally. Not much sub-zero temps in foreseeable future and my driveway is a bout to get snowfree in a day or two.
My little Mia had a major impact on my taxes this year. For the first time in years we actually received a refund instead of owing something 
I should pass the 3/4 mark of this month's Camp NaNoWriMo competition tomorrow. It's nice to be a week ahead. Working on two separate sections of the story at the same time is definitely helping, since I can either do both or one or the other if I hit a momentary bit of writer's block.
And that's with Park Ranger 13 coming out! (favorite computer game series)
And that's with Park Ranger 13 coming out! (favorite computer game series)
Synobun
Deity
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- Nov 19, 2006
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- 24,876
2020 was an... interesting year for me. I came dangerously close to giving up the ghost twice, and my health outlook was very bleak regardless; at that point, I had been predominantly bedbound for a few years. Paradoxically, the combination of being brought back to equilibrium in a clinical setting and then recovering from horribly severe COVID resulted in a fairly significant reduction in symptom severity, allowing me to go from bedbound to housebound.
This is actually difficult to feel happy about because the actual gains are so small, and they've taken so long to get to. A year and a half to be able to take two twenty-five minute walks a day if I'm not having a bad day. This would be embarrassing for someone normal, so I have to keep reminding myself that this time two years ago, I would be upright for maybe four hours in a day before being forced back to bed, and that was without any kind of exertion whatsoever. These days, I usually only have to lay down for ~45 minutes or so midday, and that's it—I can otherwise go the full day of being up and about. Not active for most of it, but at least upright.
Anyway, I've had pretty terrible issues with my gallbladder since September that have been eluding medical professionals, so now I am just waiting to see the head of surgery at the hospital who will be handling my case. This is probably going to take a long time to happen since he specializes in cancer surgeries, and there's been a huge backlog of cancellations and delays here due to the pandemic. Before the previous two cancellation/delay waves, they told me "maybe mid 2022," and as of this week the official ETA is now a shrug. One worry about this delay, and the nature of the problem, is that there is pretty significant risk of damage to the liver and pancreas, or the gallbladder simply dying and becoming necrotic, so my GP sent me to a hepatologist.
That led to a very in-depth range of blood tests. With the framing of how these two doctors talked about it, they really made it sound like I might be facing "some difficult conversations" soon given my medical history and how relatively recent it was that I was less than twenty-four hours away from meeting our Lord in Heaven, Mothra (I wish that were an exaggeration for dramatic effect, but I was throwing up water and my blood had turned acidic). That plus the delays made my personal impression of the near future... bleak. I'd seen several people die because of delayed procedures during this pandemic and had already almost become one of them for the same reason, and it was now looking like it was happening again.
However! The results came in and somehow, some way, my organ health is the best it's been in my twenties. At least, according to my blood. No liver damage, optimal pancreatic function, good kidney function. And the more interesting result is that none of the inflammatory markers were out of range this time, which they have been, absurdly so, for as long as I've been disabled. These results do complicate the gallbladder problem (because there should be some observable damage somewhere), but that's essentially a problem for the surgeon, and my two doctors have elected to let me handle management in the meantime. They say that whatever I'm doing is what I should be doing, and they don't want to encourage me to do anything different. I made incredibly radical changes to diet (plus reintroducing supplements) after being in the hospital and COVID, and I guess now I have measurable evidence that something I've done matters. I'm used to trying things and seeing no change.
I mean, every day is still agony, and mentally I'm doing incredibly poorly, but my capabilities today are more preferable to my capabilities for half of my twenties. I suppose I also wanted to say this somewhere since I've isolated myself from my friends for the past month and, to be honest, none of them would understand anyway (not their fault). You guys get to be my diary.
This is actually difficult to feel happy about because the actual gains are so small, and they've taken so long to get to. A year and a half to be able to take two twenty-five minute walks a day if I'm not having a bad day. This would be embarrassing for someone normal, so I have to keep reminding myself that this time two years ago, I would be upright for maybe four hours in a day before being forced back to bed, and that was without any kind of exertion whatsoever. These days, I usually only have to lay down for ~45 minutes or so midday, and that's it—I can otherwise go the full day of being up and about. Not active for most of it, but at least upright.
Anyway, I've had pretty terrible issues with my gallbladder since September that have been eluding medical professionals, so now I am just waiting to see the head of surgery at the hospital who will be handling my case. This is probably going to take a long time to happen since he specializes in cancer surgeries, and there's been a huge backlog of cancellations and delays here due to the pandemic. Before the previous two cancellation/delay waves, they told me "maybe mid 2022," and as of this week the official ETA is now a shrug. One worry about this delay, and the nature of the problem, is that there is pretty significant risk of damage to the liver and pancreas, or the gallbladder simply dying and becoming necrotic, so my GP sent me to a hepatologist.
That led to a very in-depth range of blood tests. With the framing of how these two doctors talked about it, they really made it sound like I might be facing "some difficult conversations" soon given my medical history and how relatively recent it was that I was less than twenty-four hours away from meeting our Lord in Heaven, Mothra (I wish that were an exaggeration for dramatic effect, but I was throwing up water and my blood had turned acidic). That plus the delays made my personal impression of the near future... bleak. I'd seen several people die because of delayed procedures during this pandemic and had already almost become one of them for the same reason, and it was now looking like it was happening again.
However! The results came in and somehow, some way, my organ health is the best it's been in my twenties. At least, according to my blood. No liver damage, optimal pancreatic function, good kidney function. And the more interesting result is that none of the inflammatory markers were out of range this time, which they have been, absurdly so, for as long as I've been disabled. These results do complicate the gallbladder problem (because there should be some observable damage somewhere), but that's essentially a problem for the surgeon, and my two doctors have elected to let me handle management in the meantime. They say that whatever I'm doing is what I should be doing, and they don't want to encourage me to do anything different. I made incredibly radical changes to diet (plus reintroducing supplements) after being in the hospital and COVID, and I guess now I have measurable evidence that something I've done matters. I'm used to trying things and seeing no change.
I mean, every day is still agony, and mentally I'm doing incredibly poorly, but my capabilities today are more preferable to my capabilities for half of my twenties. I suppose I also wanted to say this somewhere since I've isolated myself from my friends for the past month and, to be honest, none of them would understand anyway (not their fault). You guys get to be my diary.
Which we are happy to be, since you've been trusting us with such personal matters.
Honestly, once the gall bladder is gone and you recover (won't lie; it's painful), it'll take a bit of adjusting your diet (again), but that pain-so-bad-i-want-to-die-NOW will be gone.
Synobun
Deity
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- Nov 19, 2006
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It's been unending since September, and that's even with reducing my daily fat intake to below 20 g per day (this made me realize just how much fat is in normal things; a single slice of cheese is often over 10 g of fat by itself). Digestive enzymes help with the gastrointestinal issues, but not with the pain. The threshold for a low-fat diet is 40 g, so I'm at half that. If I really go nuclear on it, I can maaaaaybe get that down to 10 g per day, but I'd find that really difficult to maintain and so I haven't bothered trying. Somewhat paradoxically, my hepatologist wants me to reduce carbs to reverse the minor fatty liver I got from my issues two years ago, but there is essentially no way I can do that while also maintaining the low fat. I've thus far opted for just the low fat, carbs be damned.
I am admittedly kind of worried that the gallbladder removal won't fix the problem. According to the ultrasound, I have only minor stones and minor amounts of sludge, neither of which significant enough to cause real problems. There was also no pinching of the duct. The bloodwork shows that no bile is damaging the pancreas nor is it backing up to the liver and damaging that. Logic really dictates that something needs to be getting obstructed and damaged, but somehow there isn't. It's just the pain and the inability to eat fat. There is no/insufficient bile getting from the liver to the intestine, yet there's no blockage in the gallbladder, and the liver is not having deficient bile production. Where is the bile going? It is kind of maddening.
I suspect that is why the case was referred to the head of... hepatobiliary surgery? That sounds right. They told me he will probably want to redo the bloodwork, then do a CT scan and HIDA scan. That sounds all well and good, but with the delays, I would prefer to have those procedures referred now... The waits for both are probably months long. The ultrasound last year took over a month to get. Neither doctor wanted to do that, though, because "the surgeon will probably just redo those tests anyway."
I've been looking up patient stories of gallbladder removal post-op. It seems evenly split between "I can't have any fat whatsoever or I immediately end up in the washroom" and "I went back to eating like a pig and I'm fine." I have had, shall we say, issues in that general department for my entire life, so I'm certainly used to the first testimony, but that would mean it'd become even worse, and I'm not sure I'd like dealing with that. I already rely on Pepto-Bismol far too much to make daily life tolerable. That being said, this pain is infuriating, and I think I'm just not able to recognize how bad it really is. It's equally possible that I'll finally get the surgery and suddenly feel immense relief from an intensity of pain I wasn't capable of noticing accurately.
I have been told by women that gallbladder issues hurt worse than pregnancy* (that is, giving birth), but I kind of doubt it. I mean, maybe it's true. I wouldn't know. But my perception of this hasn't ranked as "worst pain" for me. The biggest trigger is just that I can't escape it and it's this eternal throbbing, but that also makes me consider the chance I've dissociated from it somewhat. September is over six months ago, so that's a while. It's difficult to judge.
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I had mine out and had the second reaction. I never changed my diet at all, but ate reasonably well anyway. I hope they do laparoscopic surgery on you. They should. Take care in all this my friend, I hope it all goes smoothly for you. If I can help, let me know.
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