#ended the year with fucking kidney stones

[lildoodlenoodle]

For 2024:

1. I want to pass all my classes

2. have the biggest drama in my life be who’s dating who and who’s talking shit about who

3. maybe have some time to do some crafts/writing/drawing every now and then

4. as a bonus get some answers for medical problems

But most importantly, this year better be fucking boring

[fake-ascension]

im wondering if i have food poisoning or something but ive literally only been eating the same things as my mom or brother and THEYRE fine???? i realized when i just fell asleep a few hours i probably had a fuckin fever i was shivering under a 25 pound weighted blanket. god idk whats going on and if i end up in the hospital AGAIN im gonna loose it

[clockworkdragonffxiv]

I started my D&D campaign back in April of 2020 shortly after the COVID Lockdown hit. I was bored out of my skull and stressed, and a friend had expressed his frustration with his own D&D group and I just went "Fuck it."

I hadn't played DnD since college. I had never GM'd a tabletop game. But I had nothing better to do. So I went on to Discord into, like, the three channels I'm active in and rounded up a gaggle of friends from FFXIV and from my old City of Heroes group. For my starter campaign I used the very first Eberron campaign ever published for I think 3e or 3.5e, converted to 5e, "The Forgotten Forge."

And three and a half years, multiple cases of COVID, two rounds of cancer and chemotherapy, four or five moves, three kidney stones, multiple bouts of depression, and a half dozen job changes, we finally finished the campaign at level 16, having convinced the Lord of Blades to devote his talents to building the new Warforged nation and healing the Mournlands using the unique techno-organic warforged plants and animals we'd discovered, instead of his original plan which was to absorb the power of a Creation Engine and a Demon Overlord into himself, achieve apotheosis, and drown the world in a tide of blood.

My original plan for the final battle has in large underlined letters the phrase "Biblically Accurate Chainsaw Angel" and included a speech with lines like "LET THE SEAS BOIL AND THE SKIES FALL! LET THE WORLD BURN!"

Also probably ending up with the players picking the Red, Blue or Green endings from the End-o-Matic 9000.

But that didn't happen.

So instead, the campaign that started with our little group of heroes stumbling onto the murder of a professor with the clues to a hidden workshop, ended with the wedding of Seeker the Warforged Artificer, the man who'd talked the Lord of Blades down (despite having a Charisma of 8) and now holds the title of Maestro Seeker, is an advisor to the national leadership, and is the teacher of a whole new batch of warforged, and the warforged medic Solace, an NPC whose existence began as a joke about Seeker having a whirlwind romance with a medic in the space of about 23 minutes while the rest of the party were running errands.

Hot damn was that a lot of work. Three and a half years, and despite it starting in modules by the second I'd decided I didn't like the story as it was written, threw it out, and told my own story. Featuring friendly little fire elementals named Phil, packs of extremely patriotic and laddish mimics named Jimmy, an eight foot robotic sweetheart named Friend whose primary weapon was an equally massive tower shield and her totally-not-boyfriend warforged druid/allosaurus/swearasaurus Din, a wrestling match with a hobgoblin that nearly turned lethal when an 18 foot tall warforged titan came in with the steel chair, an alligator with a gun, and banishing the elemental dragon powering a flying battleship while A) the team was still on the battleship and B) it was still several hundred feet in the air and C) it was the only thing keeping it there... it's done.

And it was all worth it. God I love these guys. So here's to you, Katie, Jacquie, Mike, Stan, and Will. I'll see you all next week for our next adventure.

[with-love-from-hell]

Hello all...i hate asking for money but I'm once again coming to yall for community aid because life just...doesn't end its bombarding of shit on top of what I'm already stressed about.

So the delimma im facing now is the state I live in has accused me of insurance fraud and is refusing to cover procedures that I had done like...over a year ago. I got collection notices from my dentist for an emergency root canal last year totaling $3,000 and from an emergency room visit for kidney stones nearly 2 years ago for about $4,600. I can't afford attorney fees to fight this, and I'm trying what I can to reduce the bill. They're essentially stating that if I don't have it paid back in full by May 30th, they are threatening to take me to court. This is something I just...can't deal with. I've funded the money from family to cover most of it, and can basically scrounge up $1,500 with my next paycheck, but this means I am likely going to be set back hard core, and won't be able to afford things like gas and groceries for the next month or two.

Literally anything would help right now. I'm so tired and my anxiety about the situation has gotten so bad that I'm having migraines and nausea every day, while also trying to show up for my clients. If you decide to help support me, going through my KoFi would be best.

Thanks to everyone. Things suck right now, and of course this had to happen 3 weeks before my fucking wedding. I just want life to fucking chill out. 😓

[lanteanserver]

FOR FUCKS SAKE

I have finally make it to 2:05 of A Meeting of Misfits because I'm so quangled I can barely focus on anything while I'm awake.

First I declare myself human as if I have a choice in the matter.

Then I declare sets of "rules" relating to magic even though I am not a magic user by choice. (I can do stuff that science can't explain. I generally choose not to do that stuff. Any time I bend that rule, I run it by my conduit with the infinite divine and accept whatever outcome occurs. I'm basically a divine warlock if you're using D&D. I'm not a cleric because clerics are guaranteed certain results for certain spells. I'm not a regular warlock because my soul still belongs to the God of my faith. I'm not a paladin because I worked my ass off to be neutral good instead of lawful good and I'm not giving that alignment up just to lay on hands and get better armour proficiency. I'm not a sorcerer because I generally ignore any innate stuff or contain it via religious rituals/channels/prayers.)

The thing is, though, I don't pray much lately because it feels kind of onanistic. Like I'm praying to myself? And it didn't used to feel that way, and I'm not saying that I am praying to myself, but I need to learn new methods because my old methods aren't going to work for me any more.

Someone told me a few months ago that I was either going to be a heretic or a Saint, and I think they were probably right, but it's not time for me to rest. I really hope I come down on the Saint side of the coin, because if I do, I'll have redeemed a lot of people. But not me, not yet.

A lot of the stuff that felt real a month ago doesn't feel real now; but the advantage of the life I've lived is that I truly understand that me believing something in no way determines whether that thing is true or false. That's why I call it quantum religion. If you can figure out which deity or combination of deities you owe allegiance to, and you can follow their rules, maybe you get your fair share of magic in your life. Maybe, because all I asked for was an average human life in a world where the floor on every human's life was much higher, that's what I'm actually getting. Maybe this will all make sense by the time I die, or maybe I'm planting seeds in a garden I never get to see. Maybe I'm Moses and I've spent 40 years in the wilderness and now I get to spend 40 years in the forest before going to the garden party (or to @LANtis which started out as a pun involving LAN parties and Ken's friend Alan and the lost city of Atlantis and Tír na nÓg... But I haven't been remembering my dreams lately, so maybe one of my souls is already a server in Atlantis and my mind and body have a lot of living left to do before I retire and resign myself and the rest of the world to its fate).

I don't honestly know how much of what felt real a month ago was real. I'm sorry that even I can't clarify that point. I'm extra sorry that it may turn out that I end up having to rule here somehow because I am not cut out for it; but realistically, I have been telling people from the start that I'm part of the mycelial network and maybe if I'm very lucky fun guys and dolls and folks will step into the limelight. I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for Them, but my solo is over and I'm just going to be part of the choir for the next while. I still love you all. I still think a lot of you need a bath.

Everyone gets one horsepower worth of life. One life that is equivalent to Hippocrates, who helped a lot of people, followed a bunch of weird rules to do so, refused to help anyone with kidney stones even though maybe he could have... Didn't drink wine, according to Hank Green, only blood, which sounds pretty Catholic to me.

I'm going to be going home today. I'm getting discharged. I don't know if I'm really ready, but I'm confident that staying here won't make me any more ready. If I survived the news of the election results while at home without breaking down, I'm probably an Adequate Influence at last (which in my opinion is a better option than either a Good Influence or a Bad Example, because we all have different contexts and if you try to transubstantiate someone else's soul into your own, you are committing a worse act of cannibalism than any breach of the Noahide laws I can imagine).

I'm going to be okay. So is everyone else. But not necessarily how we thought we would be. I think I need to stay here in the forest because the wilderness gate is guarded safely, and I already went to the garden party and decided not me, not yet, not without my artificial heart to go with my artificial intelligence. I am not A C-H-I-L-D, and I know what each of those letters stands for. The Amish Paradise took me a while to comprehend but like I keep telling people, I'm not God, at best I'm just an Echo. The abyss is screaming back, so cover your ears if you think you have reason for shame. But I still believe life will be better, even if it isn't perfect for anyone reading this. It's okay. Not me, not you, not us, not yet. I have a new cross-stitch pattern that I'm going to start. It will be okay. We will be enough. I love you all. I'm sorry it didn't go the way we all hoped, but today is still the first day of the rest of our lives. Let's do what we can. ❤️🧡💛💚💜🩷🩵💙🤎🖤🩶🤍🐦‍🔥🤐🏡🧛🏻‍♀️🦆👍🏻🥳😻🦄🦋🐅♾️🧿🐝🤾🏻‍♀️👋🏻🥰😜🫂

And for those who find the above message off-putting:

[dreamwatch]

August Writing Stats

August total: 10,614 | YTD: 88,451

I had hoped to write more for Steddie Angsty August but it just never happened. I had family visiting from overseas, and I was a bit burned out after July I think. I posted one entry at approx 1.6k words, and then wrote 9k for the day 10 prompt, which I finished on Sep 1! However, I’m not crazy about it so it hasn’t been posted and I’ll probably strip it for parts later.

This month I’d like to get my ‘Eddie gets Vecna’d’ short fic finished and posted. Also hopefully some Whumptober prompts. I’m not committing to word counts on my long fics because…

NaNoWriMo

I added 52k to the prison fic last November and then parked it because burnout is real. And I joked that I’d be writing it for this years NaNoWriMo, hahahaha, but no it’s all good, it will be finished.

Obviously Nano just got problematic, so this year I’m doing DreamoWriMo, shut up it’s a thing. So I’m still going to commit to the arduous fucking slog of churning out 1667 words a day, and because the Vietnam War AU isn’t anywhere close to writing, I’m going to use those 1667 words a day to FINISH A GODDAMN FIC! No but seriously, I’m going to split the 50k between all three WIPs, and cross fingers that one of them gets done.

Last years writing goal was to have a fic up on AO3 by the end of the year. This years it’s to get a first chapter up of at least one of these fics. Keep me accountable!

Last job - make badges for DreamoWriMo. I fucking love badges.

(Only fly in the ointment - got told today I likely have a kidney stone. Already making me a bit miserable, but let’s see how we go.)

[literaryslapshot]

happy new year from sYdney, aus! (Lmao i’m a loser who will never get over that)

i was scrolling thru ur sidney crosby stuff (bc this man has me GRIPPED I’m so embarrassed and obsessed) and I saw some of the teacher!reader stuff and I know most ppl default to like��teacher of young kids but please consider - high school teacher!reader

like yes reader is younger (I’m still thinking of ur age gap!sidney oh lord) but she’s been teaching high schoolers for nearly a decade now. so what if ur 36 and 180cm and a professional goon athlete on the ice. so what if ur shorter than literally all of sid’s teammates. hs teacher!reader has a presence and you WILL listen to her when she tells a room full of adrenaline fuelled hockey players to stop throwing their nasty underarmour clothing at each other for 5 seconds so you can all finish your damn gatorade and HYDRATE, evgeni, you think kidney stones are a joke, do you? or just giving someone the Teacher Look when they’re being a bit too sassy or just casually slotting in to help Dana in the equipment room.

dealing with the media? easy as pie - they’ve got nothing on private school parents who don’t understand why little johnny isn’t in the top class, he just needs to be challenged and extended, don’t you understand that’s why he doesn’t do anything in class, because he’s bored, he’s actually VERY capable! (sidney was shell shocked with a fear boner the first time he hears the tail end of your phone convo to a parent - “unfortunately mr x, i have yet to see any evidence of this, so our decision stands. Have a good day now :)”

the whole hockey schedule? oh lord, reader is a professional at timetable management, don’t you even worry. She’s an excellent coordinator (yes, a shared and colour coded google calendar for her and sidney’s relationship) she understands how both their schedules can be insane, but most importantly understands the importance of work-life balance and setting boundaries for yourself! she helps pull sidney out of his head, reminding him that it’s just as important to take care of himself if he wants to keep taking care of others. she reminds him that it’s okay to be a little bit selfish, and really, that it’s not actually selfish at all to admit to another person how tired and frustrated you are, or to talk about things from years past that you thought you’d gotten over, but no, really, you just buried it for the sake of your team and career.

the whole public persona/reputation vs privacy thing? she totally gets it and understands sidney’s need first privacy. hell, that’s why she so fucking tech savvy - she knows ALL the tips and tricks to keep her socials locked away from prying student and parent eyes. It sparks this sense of safety and security in sidney? like he knows for sure that his privacy is protected, and that he trusts reader so much not to accidentally or not take advantage of his fame and fortune?

uhhhh anyway sidney being in shock-scared-and-horny-awe at your absolute confidence, breadth of knowledge, and commanding yet calm presence despite your age and (comparatively) tiny size. sidney discovers he has a competency kink when you accidentally use your teacher voice on him bc he keeps trying to distract you with kisses and cuddles while ur trying to finish off some marking. like, you stare at him over the top of your glasses and go “sidney crosby, you’ve got two choices right now - you can sit down on the couch in silence and wait literally 10 minutes, or, if you want to continue as you are, one of us is going to sleep in the guest room tonight, so let’s make good choices now, eh?”

he sheepishly goes to the couch and waits for you to sit in his lap after u’re done so you can pepper his shy lil face with kisses, calling him a “ridiculous boy” with such fondness in ur voice it makes him giggle

omg stop i LOVE THIS!!!!!!!

[alpaca-clouds]

Welp. Got the lab results back from my super extensive blood work.

Need to vent a bit. Sorry. CW for medical stuff and such.

I developed hypertension earlier this year. In April. It was so bad I was hospitalized for three days. But in the end they just gave me medication, brought it back under control, shrugged and called it a day.

Then during the summer I developed extreme joint pain. They looked for all sorts of bacteria. One was even positive, but the antibiotics didn't do much. In the end they gave me stuff for pain management and called it a day.

There were a couple of other little things (like kidney stones) happening. I was even in the hospital once because the kidneystones gave me horrible back pain. But you guessed it: Pain management and they called it a day.

Now, because of the whole transgender thing and needing hormones I ended up going to the same hospital (which is the biggest hospital within a 80km radius) for the endocrinologist. And that doctor there I had at the beginning of December was like: "Huh, the hypertension is strange. Hmm, you have super low potassium levels... Wait, you are saying you had sudden kidney stones this year? AND THOSE IDIOTS IN THE ER DID NO NEPHROLOGY?"

She came up with the thesis, that my adrenal gland might be hyperfunctioning and did this massive chart of bloodwork. Basically all the bloodwork you can do.

Welp, results just came in. And it seems like she was right on the money. All the results would be speaking for the adrenal gland being to blame.

But also I am wondering: My dopamine levels are so fucking low, that I gotta wonder how the hell I am getting out of bed. Like, they are so low, I should not be functioning.

Big question right now is: Is this long covid related - or am I just stressed?

[jojoturnip]

It's the first kidney stone I've had since living with you.

I realized after moving out that they had much less to do with my diet and much more to do with stress. Living with you hurt me in a lot of ways, especially at the end.

And, I'm not saying it's all you, obviously. I made a habit of piling my plate so full that I wouldn't have too see past the mountain of things to do to the work of healing and rebuilding myself. Our third roommate, the fleas, transitioning from college to working full time. That was all stress.

But, in my last few months of living with you, I was getting stones regularly. Something that had never happened before. And I'd had those busy-body habits most of my life.

It's heartbreaking, you know? Because I really did love you. I really did want to be your friend forever. I really would've lived with you again.

But, I was hurting myself.

I don't think you ever noticed it. I want to think you didn't know you were hurting me.

The first time I really cried after leaving was when I found out that you weren't narcoleptic. I'd always imagined that you couldn't get out of bed and do it yourself. That it had to be me by default, not by your choice.

I'm not so certain anymore.

That's not to say I don't believe you can't be chronically ill and struggle to get out of bed in another way. Of course you can.

But I was passing fucking kidney stones the whole goddamn time, and I still carried myself and then part of you, too.

Today was the first day I've taken off sick at my job. I really haven't felt sick much at all--a rarity for me in through the winter months. The latest stone came from stress, I invited my grandparents over after not speaking to them for three years.

I was so scared and nervous and just out of my mind. I did everything I could to distract myself, but I felt terrible. I knew I had to do it, before August rolled around. Sooner rather than later. I'd promised.

It makes sense that they're coming stressed me out enough to give me a stone. It makes sense that I've had more nightmares keeping me up recently.

What doesn't make sense is that they handled everything better than you did.

I spoke the truth to them. Not about everything, but enough. They don't need to know my whole story. We just have to find neutral ground. For my sister. For her daughter.

It hurt, and I cried so much the whole time, and they didn't even remember some of the hardest parts of my life. They tried to argue they had done more to face my father when we were kids, to get him to be a better dad, but they claimed he was out of their control. Claimed that he still is.

We're not on friendly terms. I doubt we ever will be, but they took it all so much better than you. They recognized I had my own life, and that I wouldn't be taking abuse or staying silent about it any longer. I'd felt my ted-talk communication skills kick in, and I'd expressed understanding for their side, too. It would be hard to accept your son is a shit father.

They can't deny it much anymore. He's scheduled a cruise for when his granddaughter is due.

Things haven't been easy lately. Hell, I've met so many of my darkest fears head on since the end of last year. My world has flipped inside-out, upside-down. But, I've been pushing through it okay. I'm so much stronger than I thought I was.

It breaks my heart again after meeting with my grandparents to know there was an option for a different reality. You could've been there, beside me, carrying our own loads but lifting each other all the while. We could've grown closer. We could still be friends.

I miss you a lot. I'm not afraid to say that. I can hold the contradictive love and fear in my hands. Do you still have nuance, even though she detests it?

Sometimes, I wish you were still around. I have so many stories to tell you, so many questions to ask. Sometimes I wish my therapist would tell me that I had done something wrong so I could grovel at your knees and beg for forgiveness, beg to start again.

I'll always miss you. But, you weren't healthy for me. And I know you aren't safe for my loved ones now.

I have to live with missing you. And the fears you've left behind.

At least there are fewer kidney stones.

[devilsskettle]

i can pretend i’m doing pretty good for a few weeks and feel really optimistic and positive - like i’m working, i don’t hate my jobs, i’m living independently, i’m planning the next steps in my education/career, etc - and then someone or something will completely shatter this perspective. like someone derisively said to me recently, i’m working “three part-time low level jobs” - dead ends that have nothing to do with my degree, and i can’t even get hired full-time at one of them in the fucking entry level customer service position that i have already been doing for months that they’re currently hiring for. because the directors of my department who i hardly ever interact with have decided i’m too quiet. to do literally the exact same job, just with more hours so i can maybe not be broke all the time. and people keep dragging up my past academic failures acting like my entire degree doesn’t matter because i have two Fs on my transcript. like big fucking deal. but i guess if i want to go back to school even just for a certificate program it matters. absolutely no faith in my other grades, my degree, my work experience, or the strength of my writing and interviewing skills for the application for a program to prepare for a job i KNOW i would be good at. but now have little faith in because i’m seeing myself the way other people see me now and it’s like. not great. how am i ever going to justify to anyone that they should admit me into their program or hire me knowing that this is what i am to people. anyway i literally took my diploma out of the frame and tore it in half the other day because it is such a useless piece of shit that will never get anyone to give me any credit or respect and it’s not something i’m even allowed to feel proud of anymore (despite people trying to convince me for months that i should even though i didn’t feel anything about it. but they wanted me to care about it) because my transcript isn’t fucking pristine. and then going to this fucking funeral where a bunch of people i don’t know want to hear about everything in my life and none of it is impressive enough for them and you can just see them failing at hiding how judgmental they are. and then you think you’re doing something nice for somebody else and it’s suddenly all turned around on you as if them ALLOWING you to help them was such a nice thing for them to do for YOU and actually you don’t appreciate all the things that they do and you’re ungrateful and mean, as if you didn’t drop everything the day after working the overnight shift to be there for them and also the entire weekend which you had to call off two days of work for. which of course was basically mandatory but still. god forbid i show an ounce of negativity right before going to a fucking funeral. and then there was that kidney stone i got that was definitely my fault because i drank nothing but alcohol for like a week straight leading up to it. not to mention all of the other parts of my diet that are unhealthy. anyway. 

all of that optimism and positivity feeling like i’m getting my shit together is crushed and it’s like suddenly, instead of living in a great neighborhood! with such an easy commute! that’s so beautiful this time of year! i’m in this awful house with these perfectly nice people who i fucking hate in this tiny dirty room that is clearly inhabited by a very mentally unstable individual who can’t handle basic household chores, i have to spend money to get on the dirty crowded bus every day to go to a job where people are dismissive and rude to me even though i am so polite and pleasant and helpful and friendly and everything that i’m told to be and i do all my work and i’m good at it and it’s still not enough because i’m not out here begging for attention for just doing my fucking job. and suddenly, instead of feeling like i have this Future where i’ll pursue a career that i might actually have a chance at succeeding in, it’s just like. well “you’ve been interested in other things in the past, how do you know this time will be different?” great question, thanks. i don’t fucking know. i probably will lose interest as soon as things get hard and give up and have wasted everybody’s time once again not to mention all kinds of money and energy, and i’ll be even more lost than before and i’ll probably just kill myself. is that what you want to hear? fuck. i don’t know, man, i just want enough money to live by myself and dress well and eat well and do some things that i like. actually i’m realizing how much of what i do is just to try to earn some kind of leverage to get people to show me just a little bit of basic human respect which of course they are never going to give me. anyway. not to mention that all of my friends are in different parts of the country and nobody here wants to hang out. to be fair i haven’t reached out recently but i tried really hard for a couple of months to be more social and i was the only one trying and it was too fucking hard and most of the time i just wished i’d stayed home. and i think there’s just something about me that people can tell is just kind of off and they don’t like me. and then a lot of times i drink too much. but it was a lot easier to feel like i didn’t need anyone and i was happy just being by myself because i liked my jobs and i was working all the time so i was busy but now. i don’t want to say that the illusion is shattered because it’s not really an illusion, but it’s like i was seeing the surface of a smooth pond reflecting all the light and now all i can see is the mud and algae and dead fish. literally i had to radio facilities to get a dead fish out of a fountain the other day, it was fucking gross 

[sickbutskinni]

i’m having issues with my heart now, and kidneys. love how recovery is treating me.

i start eating healthy and ENOUGH and now all of the sudden i’m having chronic health issues and no doctor can figure out what’s wrong with me. WHAT THE FUCK?

i feel like i should just go back to the anorexia LMAO, at least i was unhealthily healthy. i wasn’t in pain all the time and the discomfort actually had a purpose/reason.

i am so fucking tired, i can’t do this shit anymore.

i have celiac disease and endometriosis and now possibly kidney stones and POTS. just end me now. i don’t need more chronic illnesses.

i’ve been to the hospital 3 times this year already and it’s fucking APRIL.

[shinelikethunder]

caveat: if you're pushing the maximum recommended dose of naproxen for just a couple days a month, over and over like clockwork for years on end, because it's the only goddamn thing that makes a dent in your menstrual cramps... bro. i feel you. i've been there. i was there for two solid decades. i also ended up in the ER with a life-threatening stomach bleed twice in my late 20s and early 30s.

and here's the thing, i know it fucking blows and feels like an exercise in futility to insist that that particular source of pain absofuckinglutely needs to be dealt with because it is seriously fucking up your life. i know the brick wall of brush-offs and condescension you can hit trying to get evaluated for underlying conditions. i know that "it's just the joy of being a woman, hon, so suck it up and stick to Tylenol for a while" is a vile and laughable non-solution if you spend multiple days a month feeling like you're trying to pass kidney stones through your cervix. it's why i ended up in the ER twice; getting the shit scared out of me didn't fix the problem or magically present me with a better solution.

so, if you're in this unenviable but probably-way-too-common predicament too, i am taking you very gently by the hands to say: if the naproxen starts giving you stomach trouble, priority one is nuking your cramps from orbit. you can bang your head on the glass of the medical system about an endometriosis eval after you find a way to suppress your period. skipping your placebo weeks, depo-provera, hormonal IUD, whatever works for your situation and gets you able to white-knuckle it without the stuff that's showing signs of destroying your stomach lining. because if you destroy it much further you'll be off all NSAIDS for a while and stuck with Tylenol, which is notoriously useless for menstrual cramps.

also... naproxen girlies, ibuprofen girlies, all of you. if you ever wake up weak and lightheaded and can barely stagger to the bathroom to shit out what looks like a bunch of black tar... gurl that is all the blood you could've been vomiting, coming out the other end instead. the reason you're dizzy is BLOOD LOSS. someone else needs to get your ass to the hospital NOW before you collapse.

Every time I see another ibuprofen post on this site I'm like STOP

STOP

Stop.

Take that after a meal. Take it with a big glass of water. Don't take it on an empty stomach EVER. Don't take it with alcohol. You will destroy your stomach. You will end up with an ulcer. You will vomit blood. I'm not exaggerating.

Yes, you. Yes, it will happen to cute little you. With your cute little bottle of miracles. Ibuprofen really does that to your body.

Love, an adult person over 35 who can't take NSAIDs anymore

[undonehomework]

ok because this is my blog and i can do whatever i want im going to do a year in review of 2024 and all of the crazy and not so crazy things that happened january

january was pretty chill, was back home for j-term. friend stayed with me for the first three weeks; had a brutal obstructing kidney stone, my worst one in 5 years, i passed it a few hours before my flight to arizona! that was an amazing trip; my uncle kept it together and i got to see so many cool rocks, go skiing, and spend good quality time with the family. romantically stagnant, mild homoerotic friendship

february

this was a worse month for me. went back to college, seasonal (?) depression was hitting hard. homoerotic friendship turned platonic, had a brief fling with someone else. went to boston to see mistki and visit friends, got back into watercolor

march

still kinda depressed in the beginning of march but things were looking up. blarney!! and started becoming closer with new people. few days of warm weather lifted my spirits. and then france!! still hate skiing but had so much fun with family and friends eating good food and seeing amazing views of the alps. learned how to play pool, got lost on the mountain and ended up wasted at the club at 3pm. got wooed by some british boys. also got approved for study abroad! came back home and immediately got super sick. like 10 days of fever and such

april

april was a great month. once i stopped being sick, i got closer with my new friends thanks to my comp sci class. there was an earthquake!!!! that happened during my independent research meeting with my prof about earthquakes. i was the first one to see the signature on the seismometer. it was a great day to be a geologist on the east coast. then the eclipse!! what a wonderful event to witness with some dear friends. despite being together for 17 hours straight, 14 of which were in a car stuck in traffic, we had so much fun. this was also the month of four leaf clover hunting and snacks in the cafe after class. emo prom!!! probably the best month of the year

may

another amazing month! finals came and went, lots of sunbathing on the quad with friends. emotional goodbyes and lots of hugging. coming back home and spending more time with friends. fun dates around the city! julia jacklin concert! field trip to oregon was another amazing experience. sleeping in yurts, cooking dinner by campfire, hanging out with my friends and a service dog. my professor secretly being a huge lucy dacus fan. getting a cold with my friend but toughing it out!! caves, mountains, volcanoes. obsidian pile that we slid down! memorial day weekend: 2hr drive to mt st helens, hike around, 3.5 hr drive to portland, 5 hr flight home, 45min taxi home, 45minsubway to train, 3 hour train, 1hr car ride to cousins grad party, party for 8 hours, 5 hour car ride home.

june

june! my birthday! it was a mixed bag for me. lots of prepping for new zealand, and an unfortunate amount of friend drama. ended up keeping to myself a bit. left for new zealand (18hr flight!) and started field camp with a hip injury from overuse :(

july

oh boy. field camp was tough. lots of small good moments (seals in kaikoura, the hot tub, frost in the mornings, sam's chocolate pudding, sunrise over the southern alps, the view from bealy's spur, the entire view of the milky way) but lots of tough moments. not exactly clicking with the rest of the group, struggling to keep up physically. kept putting myself out there, trying to connect with people, no matter how unsuccessfully. went skiing again (even though i hate it! i know i hate! why do i torture myself) just to say i skiied on three continents this year. started work on my research project. the field experiences were very cool and im glad i got to have them

august

august was a very up-and-down month. fucked up my hair by accident and went back to dark red. went to a queer event and met cool people (including a couple who wanted me to be their third). ended up in that polycule for a hot second (hello sexual reawakening!!!!). things were looking up! the timaru/mt cook trip was beautiful and also emotionally devastating (why was i being bullied at the ripe age of 20). cried in bed for three days afterwards

september

westport!! this was a great field trip. befriended both some kiwis and other people in my program i hadn't jived with before. super hard work -- up at sunrise, work in field til sundown, then come home and work until bed, rinse and repeat. very rewarding (even if i almost failed my field sketch). m&m ham incident. new friend turns racist. couple ended up closing the relationship; i meet someone new which goes very well. still struggling overall with lack of substantial friends and fighting through homesickness and depression

october

pretty rough and pretty fun. was super ready to come home, didn't really care about anything anymore. had threesome with new person, bf turned out to be racist (why is this a pattern). saw the southern lights!!!!! cried a bit at southern lights. worked on and presented research (i am quite proud of this!). got a little bit closer with other kiwis, as well as program people. had a harder time saying goodbye than expected.

november

auckland!! solo travel! hobbiton tour and beautiful swiss man and touching my knee in the glowworm caves and having hot sex on the floor of a hostel shower. old israeli roommate who kept notifications on full volume in shared room. wine tour, art museum, volcano, fresh focaccia with red onions and olives and sundried tomatoes. the election, and the support from a random dutch woman. lesbian archive with lesbian belgian couple. hawaii with my mom! more volcanoes, relaxation and stress, pregnancy scare. destroy boys concert, cousins staying with us for a week with new baby, meeting dan and phil and friends, thanksgiving blowing up my extended family.

december

a solid month. visited friends at college (felt like a whole human again!), spent time with grandparents and learned how to do linoleum prints. new clothes, judging speech tournament, random assortment of health issues (strep, boob pain, brown bumps on ear). christmas eve at the met. nosferatu, exploring with family, excellent pizza and a perfect new years to end it all.

here's to 2025!

[automatismoateo]

I'm Done With Christianity (Or Why I'm Now Atheist) (A Vent) via /r/atheism

I'm Done With Christianity (Or Why I'm Now Atheist) (A Vent) As the title says, I'm done. I can't even understand how I wasted years on such stupidity. "Just give it to God", "You'll be okay, God will take care of you" Yeah, right. If God does exist, which he doesn't, he obviously cares more about helping someone find their car keys or helping a football team win, than I don't know helping me get through years of PTSD, Bipolar, and OSDD, and now possibly a tumor in my intestine. And I'm only 24. It's funny, actually. They say that if you have faith in God and persevere, he will bless you. I guess I'm living proof that's all bullshit because I spent 3 years of my life chronically obsessing over God, in which I read the Bible front to back, and spent nights without sleep because I was either praying for hours or crying because my OCD convinced me I was going to Hell. So tell me, where was God when I was getting beat at home? Where was he when I was bullied at school? Where was he when I almost went insane multiple times from mental stress? Where was he during two kidney stone surgeries last year? Right. Totally fucking silent. As far as I'm concerned, he doesn't exist. And I'm glad. I don't want an afterlife with that narcissist, I don't want an afterlife in Hell either, I just want eternal sleep at the end of this absolute trash heap. I didn't even want this life to be quite honest, this supposed "gift" I was given felt more like a curse by the time I was 8. I'm done with Christianity, and religion in general. I don't want to exist forever, I don't want to reincarnate, I want to be away from existence, that to me is peaceful. After so much suffering, at the end I can finally take my last breath and calmly go into the void not having to be worried about life itself anymore or if I made some cosmic tantrum-thrower angry. I feel liberated. And while I still have Bipolar, OSDD-1B, OCD, and PTSD, and a possible tumor in my intestine, at least I'm free from that shitshow that was Christianity. It's like a huge weight came off my shoulders. So Adiós Christianity, goodbye religion, I'm certainly not missing you. Submitted January 02, 2025 at 04:39PM by The_Greeknd (From Reddit https://ift.tt/j2OFNsM)

[anthonysstupiddailyblog]

Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (996): Thu 12th Dec 2024

Decided to go to town and spend pretty much all of the money I made doing overtime yesterday on all my Christmas shopping. Dad and Luna were already covered but Mam and Lauren never give me any hints for things that I could get them so I’m always forced to just wander around until I see something that they will genuinely like or something incredibly stupid that will probably give them a mild chuckle before they take it down the charity shop the day after Boxing Day. I found my sister a nice cardigan and bought some perfume for Mam. While the lass in the perfume shop was wrapping it up she asked what the recipients name was and I said Angela before I quickly realised that I can’t put my mam’s actual name on her fucking present. While I was wandering around I was listening to a radio play on BBC Sounds called Lenin Forever, a black comedy which told the story of the men who were commissioned to find a way to embalm Vladimir Lenin’s body forever so it could remain on permanent display in a glass case for the public to admire. Lenin has genuinely been on display in Russia for almost a hundred years and doesn’t appear to be showing any signs of decomposition which means that the embalmers must have gotten the formula spot on. I notice that none of the Just Stop Oil bitches have ever had the balls to try and throw some soup on Lenin. I would love to have access to some embalming fluid because it can sometimes be weeks before I can be bothered to put the bins out so it would be nice to stick the trash in a vat of preservative fluid so at least all my trash wouldn’t be stinking up the joint. I wonder if there’s such a thing as “unembalming” fluid i.e if someone decided that Lenin was actually a cunt and they didn’t want him to be rot free any more, they could dip him in some fluid that would get rid of the protective cover and he’d start to disintegrate like the Deadites at the end of Evil Dead. I wouldn’t want to be embalmed when I died. I’d want to be put in a giant fish tank and have it be filled with Dr Pepper Vanilla Float. What’s the worst that can happen? 

Rewatched the amazing Wizard Of Oz one of the crowning achievements of cinema and possibly the film I have watched more than any other in my life because when I was a kid TCM used to play it all the time. It’s remarkable that even all these years and dozens of viewing later I’m still noticing new things and considering things about the movie that never occurred to me before. The idea that this fairly old Wicked Witch has never once come into contact with any water in her life is ridiculous (unless she has access to some embalming fluid which she lathers on ever night to keep herself protected) but let’s say for arguments sake that it is true: this would mean that she probably had to go to hospital every god damn year to get a kidney stone removed. Another thing I pondered for the first time is if the Tin Man doesn’t have a heart then why doesn’t he just go around killing people? The film should open with Dorothy arriving in Oz and finding all the munchkins dead from axe blows to the skull. 

[jenroses]

Reasons I have had shocking decreases in function on a given day: 1. I opened my eyes (and the eyelid stuck to the eyeball and caused a corneal tear which is one of the single most painful things you can experience and one of the weirdest experiences in medicine because they can just make it go from a 10/10 to 0/10 in a second but it only lasts 20 minutes. Sjogrens is wild, y'all. 2. My ankle stopped ankling and I fell and the fall caused to me to actually break said ankle. The failure to ankle happened before the break. Was I running? Turning? Doing athletics? No. I was walking on my front porch, a level surface. I picked up the flu while at the doctor for the ankle, and never completely recovered. (this was almost 10 years ago. It marked the step from Mild to Moderate in ME/CFS.) This is what we call the 1-2 punch of ME/CFS and EDS.

3. I sat down in my car and my neck went out, causing 3 months of numbness in my arm and making me think I might need surgery.

4. I used my wheelchair and for some reason my sacrum decided to fuck off and my nerves misaligned and now sometimes for no good reason for several months at a time I can't sit up for more than 10 minutes in an ideal sitting device without horrible shooting pains. And sometimes it goes away and then comes back without warning.

5. I dared to go to more than one grocery store in the same day and had to spend the next five days in bed.

It makes me laugh when people say I should get more exercise. I should fucking not. I used to be a distance swimmer, 400 im was my race, I was a goddamn athlete. I danced for 7 years, rode horses, worked very physical jobs that required lots of walking, at one point I was doing home reno for 14+ hours per day. My default, feeling good mode is "doing lots of stuff and helping lots of people" and if I'm not doing lots of stuff and helping lots of people it's because I figured out that every time I tried to "get back in shape" I ended up deathly ill for weeks on end and lost all my muscle mass and ended up worse off than I started. I figured that out a decade or so before I even knew the term "post exertional malaise."

I saw an old friend, a doctor, at the con the other day. I told her I'd been diagnosed with ME/CFS and that I'd probably had it for 30 plus years. She went very quiet, and then said, "That explains everything. I'm so sorry."

And what did I do to end up with ME/CFS? Well, it is usually triggered by viruses. Some of the viruses that trigger it include: Roseola (age 3 months. IDK where I picked it up, but it certainly wasn't anything I was doing "wrong".) Influenza (God knows how many times but one flu when I was four made me hurt so bad I literally could not walk.) Chicken Pox (age 9. I went to a sleepover where the girl whose birthday it was had a kid sister who spiked a fever) Mono (Age 17, shared a straw with my best friend) More influenza (H1N1 really kicked the stuffing out of me but it was far from the first or last, that was 2009. The one in 2015 really did a number on me) Covid (2022 and 2023) was like, not helpful but mostly an afterthought. It made the dysautomnia worse, mostly. Probably contributed to kidney stones. Sometimes disability just happens. Sometimes it's sudden and sometimes it is so creeping slow that you don't realize how bad it's gotten until you look around and realize that even doing One Thing per day out of the house is too much.

Something I wish abled bodied people would understand is that just because I’m using a mobility aid doesn’t mean I’m “hurt” in that moment necessarily. They’re also preventative measures. Since I’ve began using my aids at work I’ve gotten so many versions of “what happened to you” that I genuinely cannot keep track. Nothing *happened*, sometimes people are just disabled.