I never knew this group existed and I'm really grateful I've found it. I could really use some help. My LO is 10 this year and their father and I have been separated since they were three months old. We were better as friends than partners...well at least I thought we were. I had people tell me they were jealous of our coparenting relationship and a judge in awe of how amicable we were with each other during the whole thing. Everything was so good and all of us clicked so well - we were there for my ex when their car croaked and sacrificed our second car to help them get around. Relatives helped them get a new car. We helped them countless times including trips to the hospital and support when a relative feel ill. I thought everything was good but now...
A month ago I learned they were dating someone. That's cool - everyone deserves love and they need it more than most. They told me they met on a dating website and have been talking about a month.before officially hooking up - lie number one. Turns out it was two months.
I argued that I need at least six months before any introductions and I laid down some decent ground rules about wanting to meet them first before LO is introduced. I just want to play it safe because I don't know them. You think I'd made them kill their puppy or something. I work in child protection, I want to foster a safe environment for my LO because I know what happens when it's not.
Two weeks ago on the Friday things start to blow up. I'm being accused of keeping our child from him - lie number two. I've always had an open and honest communication style with them - if they want extra time or whatever just call and we'll work it accordingly. The only time I've said no is when we had previous plans, medical appointments or illness.
They want to pull them out of certain aftershock activities that they pay half for, talking about money issues. That's fine whatever I'll carry the cost. I pay for LO's medication, their appointments, their vacation care, their haircuts 70% of the time, I have primary custody and they see them one night a week after it was their choice to cut back from two to one.
Now due to these money issues they're going to be moving in soon with this new partner after dating for two months. The house has no viable electricity, its a renovators dream or something so I can only imagine the state of the place. Their person has literally a dozen big dogs and none are disexed or vaccinated. My LO is scared of big dogs and is neaurodivergent on top of everything so the schedule blow out will cause issues. Of course I haven't been told this, I've read it after they unsuccessfully tried to force a relative to make me do something they wanted done.
Today I was running late home from work....I work in the city and finished at 5. It was unfortunate I got stuck but I did and I got home ASAP. Y'all I have been demoted down to The Ex. I don't even get a name anymore. I'm the Ex and apparently I'm deliberately causing him issues because I think their job is beneath them. Apparently I implied that several months ago and it's a grudge they are still holding and I don't even rememeber it.
I'm no angel and I will own up to it. I have my issues and my problems but I've never once made access to their kid an issue. I didn't want to have LO suffer the same shitty divorced household situation me and XH grew up in. Ever since they've been dating this new person everything had become a problem and it's all apparently my fault. I'm so angry and I'm so upset....we used to have a good relationship and would talk about games and stuff outside the kiddo. Now it's just tanked and I don't know what to do. I don't want to engage a lawyer but I don't feel like I have a choice.
Any advice here from those who have a difficult coparenting relationship would be super, super helpful.
I'm in Australia if that helps.
I really don't know what to do.

Around, late april, M(20) found out, my sister F(19) wanted to spend a weekend with her boyfriends house. My family is fairly conservative and boyfriends M(20) family is pretty liberal, he went to an international school and is not pure Filipino.
I'm from the Philippines where people are pretty conservative so naturally my Christian Family was taken aback, denied her from going despite her insistence and flew her back home as she goes to college really far away, this was during their ILW which is basically a week where all classes are online, so she technically had no class for a week. Now she's extremely angry why she wasn't allowed to go, angry at the whole family and me (because I agreed that she shouldn't have gone).
For culture context. Shes Still living at home, but has an apartment near the college. It's quite common for young adults who arent married to still live with the family, even when they have a job. Legally shes an adult, but unlike western cultures, we don't really have that concept of when your 18, "You can do whatever want", everyone is still closely involved, emotionally, physically, and financially. An parallel to this would be our financial culture, Where in western countries its quite common for 18 y/o to get a part time job, while not unheard of here, its not as common, our parents still pay for everything. Although me myself don't adhere to this, I work part time and go to college, which is already quite an outlier at 20.
I said that we wanted what was best for her and just want to look out for her, Early on our father jumped ship really early, and we also have history of unplanned pregnancies and women not being able to pursue their dreams (i.e stopping college) so that to probably motivated the reactions, when she was home they discussed it in depth on why such a thing wasn't allowed, at no point did we insist they break up, and I actually would prefer someone to be there for here when we cant. She keeps insisting the boyfriend who she's been dating for about 3-4 months now has the best intentions and they wouldn't be having sex.
I know this is a pretty liberal platform and most of you think that sex isn't a big thing but It is for our family, and allowing the eldest daughter in the family to spend a few days at the boyfriends place who we haven't formally met was out of the question, we've met on occasion but haven't really talked in length because her college is pretty far from mine. It puts a strain in our family and I want to know how to navigate the situation. I've already planned to meet and have lunch with the guy in a few days to get to know him, but would like additional input into the situation. I know not to aggravate her even more by disagreeing with her, and plan to actually to just give her safe sex advice instead, but I would just like to know everyone's thoughts on the situation.

Hi there everyone, I kind of curious, I have been writing a crossover fanfic in the style of Super Robot Wars storylines. One of the Franchises I want to add is RWBY, however, I never really got into the series until playing Blazblue Cross Tag Battle and during his time I started read up on the series on various wiki pages.
So, if I'm wrong on any details or something does seem to match the character's personalities, please tell me!
In this point of the fanfic, it took place after my idea of an ending to the series, so here goes nothing!
The white haired huntress explained why she feels this is the case, telling them the story of her younger brother and his road for redemption.
For the longest of times, Whitley had nothing but hatred for his older sisters and saw the hunters and huntresses as below him, mocking Weiss every moment he had while she was under house arrest. Escaping from this sham of a home, she swore the boy and their father were nothing but monsters and for their actions were things that she never could forgive. That is until it was after the arrest of their father and their manor being invaded by Grimms that cracks were showing in his facade of pettiness.
"During that fight, Whitley wanted nothing but to run off, until he saw our mother fighting against the Grimm before falling from the underuse of her Semblance when he knew he needed to help."
After saving Willow and learning from their mother that Whitley was as much of a victim as anyone else that the middle child chose to mend their damaged relationship. During the fall of their home Kingdom of Atlas, he continued to help by having all the SDC Saircrafts to save anyone and everyone to relocate the people to Vacuo. When the Team RWBY and Jaune return from Ever After, he became part of the attacking forces as a commander to help defeat Salem's forces.
In the final battle, He was present to witness Ruby Rose and Kairi sparing the now depowered and mortal Salem, who was told to simply live with reminders of her sins haunting her until the day she died, as this was her last life. "While we watch Salem leaving to parts unknown, I thought Whitley was going to say something foolish, but to my surprise, he only watched.
In the four weeks after Salem's defeat, Whitley began his new life but it was something to adjusted to as he worked a part time job and began to start classes in that first week The heir of whatever remained of the SDC let his hair grow out slightly, he may have been inspired by a picture of Jaune's appearance during his time in Mistral but still kept a very clean appearance.
It wasn't until a week ago that there were some Jacques' old associates from Vacuo wanted to give Whitley the position of CEO of a new company, one named Phoenix Ash.
"At first, I thought he just wanted to go back to his old ways of life when he agreed to the deal, Asked from me was to trust him about this..."
Out of the blue, The new CEO of the Phoenix Ash Group called for a Public Announcement. Weiss and Winter were watching on a monitor in an aircraft outside of the city. Fearing for the worst, that he would be making empty promises to make a postive public image, the boy spoke of ending the practices of abusing Fanuas workers. This was a lie that their father made to the press when he was alive, before the young CEO spoke of his new idea.
When questioned by the Press, Whitley told the world that he his idea was to start finding better sources than just Dust to rely on, so he would put his own Lien that he held on since childhood to fund this research. If this research was successful, then he would personally see to the closure of all Dust Mines under the Pheonix Ash banter but threaten that if any of the Fanuas workers were harmed during his time as CEO, that under his leadership that he personally see it that the abusers' paychecks would go to their victims and repeated offenders would be fired as quickly as possible. The two sisters begin to noticed that four of The Board Members who hired him were in shaking in their boots.
"Young Sir, please think of the words you speak..." one of Jacques' remaining associates on the board begged to hopefully conviced the boy to reconsider these ideas
"I am fully aware of the words coming from my mouth as much as you were aware of letting my father's actions slide so you can make more Lien. So, to be quite blunt, SHUT IT OR FIND NEW JOBS!" This wasn't like the boy they once knew while Jacques was thriving, he was a new Whitley Schnee that wouldn't be swayed by the idea of making Lien in dishonest ways and wouldn't allow anyone under his leadership to harm the Faunus workers.
"DAMNED BLEEDING HEART BRAT, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE JACQUES, THE REAL HEIR OF THE NAME OF SCHNEE!"
The oldest board member, a muscular bald man of over fourty who was still extremely loyal to the deceased CEO of SDC, charged at the youth with a knife! The youngest of the Schnee clan knew there would be risks, but didn't have any fighting experience to counter this attack.
"WHITLEY!" Weiss cried out as she knew she wouldn't be able to stop the would be killer's attempt of assassination, however, a certain green eyed Faunus, who's loyalites to Robyn Hill last to this day, arrived in enough time to stopped the youth's would be killer.
"You really think that Fiona Thyme would let you kill your new boss? As IF!"
Within a mere set of seconds, the man of three hundred and something pounds was on the ground, each insult that was aimed at the girl was countered with his former boss nodding for the girl to wack the creep across his bald head. This last for a couple of minutes until the police to take his sorry ass to jail as well as charging the Faunus with a minor crime. The girl knew that there would no way to escape but chose not to surrender as she put her hands behind her head much to the cheers of some in the crowd.
However, In those five seconds before the cuffs closed on her hands, The CEO jumped off of the platform and stood in between the messy haired Faunus girl and the arresting officer, slapping the cuff out of the man's hands to the shock of the world. When asked to step aside, the boy's answer to this was something everyone in Remnant, who were either in the crowd or watched from afar from their scrolls, never expected.
"You're really asking me to step aside, so you could take away a war hero's future? I choose to refuse for we all know these charges against her are nothing but baseless. She fought on the side of various heroes! Heroes ] from the Battle of Beacon, like the Teams: RWBY, JNPR, SSSN, FNKI, ABRN and CFVY, the heroes without teams like Lady Kairi, Qrow Branwen, and Taiyang Xiao Long, Heroes like Ilia Amitola and the Belladonna clan who were once White Fang members but left before the assassination of Sienna Khan and return to fight to stop the once peaceful group when they saw what it became under the command of Adam Taurus, heroes like the remaining members of the Ace Operatives, who fought their own feelings of sadness when they lost Clover Ebi and came together after they realized James Ironwood was in the wrong, after the man fell into despair because of how the upper class saw the innocent victims in Remnant and used Atlas as a ram to prevent the Grimm from gaining another advantage point. These groups of heroic and wonderful people came together to save the world from the forces of Salem, so why can't we, the civilains they protected, do the same?!"
There were some mutters from the civilians that watch on the ground level before one of the rich members of the crowd, a man named Harry Marigold, brought up that Weiss may have saved the world but of her crime of summoning the Grimm at the charity event at Schnee Manor should be held accountable before the youth counter with.
"The crime that night was one in justified anger when you, Harry Marigold, who ignored her sadness and only wanted my sister's attention for bragging rights, that damnable trophy wife, her weak minded shell of a husband, the former CEO of the SDC, myself and many others of the Upper Class chose to cruely mocked the recently deceased of Vale and proudly laughing about the deaths of the many innocents of the fallen Kingdom who had nothing to do with the fighting. fates we claimed that civilains deserved!? If anything, she didn't summoned the Grimm to harm anyone but wanted us demons to understand that life is not to be taken as a joke or anything to not to be take lightly. The real crime that night was that the Grimm didn't caused more damages to Schnee manor and not having the monster hurt any of us because of our cruelity to the dead! But because the CEO of SDC cared for nothing but his public image, when she confronted that scumbag for our actions and for using her as a prize toy for everyone to see, his only reaction was to slapped my sister across her face and denied her Birthright!
This made the rich members of the crowd uneasy, as they knew that they were being put in their places. They wanted the youth to be silenced but he continued, angry and filled with something that he should've had a long time ago, a frightful sense of Justice.
"For too damn long, I was blinded by my family's name, not knowing it was nothing but an evil curse and if it wasn't for my sister's actions that night and the night her team and the remaining members of team JNPR saved the lives of my poor mother and the sorry shell of a person. I, too, would've remained under the very same spell of ignorance that the old fool relished in to keep us in line. So, for you to order me around, to use my sister justified attempt on the upper class to see her honorable view on life so who could silence my words, and to force this maiden, who has fought harder than anyone here because fearful paranoia bigots using unjust hatred of every Faunus to make her life a living torture device, for her to rot in a prison cell without a fair trial, just for saving my life? That command is UNFORGIVABLE!" The boy screamed loudly and in pure rage so everyone could hear his plea.
Fiona was in shock, she heard from various communities of the Faunus that the SDC and clan of Schnee were nothing but monsters, worse than any of Salem's Grimms. Even after meeting the huntresses of Team RWBY, she believed Weiss was the only one of the family who wanted to set things right in the world.
Even through she hated the idea to keep an eye on the Schnee heir, even if it was a jobn from her trusted leader. His father and the fellow members of the Board in the SDC saw the Faunus and wanted nothing but for them to be trapped in cages without futures, But to see with her eyes, the very son made to follow in these footsteps of selfish desires, meaning every single word that left his mouth, these words that were filled with a justified desire to save the young girl from an unfair fate, was so unreal.
"If anything, it was the wicked ideas of greed that the deceased CEO held dear tt were one of the many factors that broke our world, Jacques Sc..." The boy stopped for less than a second before continuing in anger.
"....Actually no, I refuse to allow that bastard to my family's name any longer, even in death! Jacques Gélé was never a father, he was nothing but an unredeemable thief without a sense honor, who used dirty lies to trick my dying grandfather into his once humble life, the honorable man that should've had the right to lived long enough to prevent the future Gélé wanted, Nicholas Schnee!"
"Who used my recently deceased mother's, Willow Schnee, love and trust to steal a company he was never worthy to rule over from underneath her. When she learned of his deception and his lies in their sham of a relationship, the once loving and carring mother only means to escape from his wicked virus was to drink her sorrows away and seclude herself from the world!
"His sickness was something that their three children were not immuned to as he saw nothing from us but to be used as pawns so he could gain more power! It wasn't until we learned better ways to live by others, others who actually cared, that we actually became good people!"
"The first of us was to learn this lesson was The Soldier who proven herself time and time again, who enlisted in the Atlas military to get away from the sickness that Gélé took pleasure in, who leaders knocked the views of hatred for the Faunus and the usage of cheap tricks out of her, my oldest sister, Commander Winter Schnee!
"My second oldest sister, Huntress Weiss Schnee, who learn of the shame that her family name carried at her time in Beacon, who was forced to leave after the battle by Gélé for supposed safety only to be paraded around as a prize trophy daughter for his friends in the upper class, who felt the sting of venom when that man refused to accept her heroic heart, forcing her to escape his maddess so she could continued helping those who were suffering!"
"And then there's myself, Whitley Schnee, the boy who was so scared with the various changes to his home life that he chose to follow in that thief's footsteps, who once mocked the dead of Beacon along with the others in the Upper Class, who has never fought for anything and even in that last battle, was so powerless to prevent more tragedies for befall those he commanded to fight on his behalf! The boy who's heart is filled with so much regret because of his idiotic choices in life but is now filled a newly found sense of Justice, who only goal now is to find a cure for the poison, so he could, no! will make our world a better place than it was in the past!"
The crowd was stunned thar they couldn't help but to stay silent.
"Gélé has cause so much suffering to the Faunus and to many other communities. That suffering spread in the Kingdoms like wildfire. When my grandfather died, so did the fairness and honor that the Schnee name held on to....but not anymore! MY DREAM is to stop the suffering that Gélé relished in so he could live like a damn lazy king!
Whitley then put his hands behind his head and told the world.
"So if this girl goes to prison, so will I! All I asked of those listening is not to cheer no matter what the outcome is, not to cry for this foolish boy who has fought for nothing, but to simply think about his words and the weight they pull!" Whitley's blood was boiling as The puppet CEO's bight blue eyes widden to show everyone that his dream was one that the boy will work for through his pain.
After this decree was finished, everything was slient before the officer asked. "Would you die for that dream..?"
Whitley, answered with all seriousness. "If I die, then I would gladly die with a hundred stabs to my heart and soul to make damn sure that my dream becomes reality." The officer waved to another cop to bring in a second set of handcuffs, much to both cops dismay.
"Alright, I'm sorry. Whitley Schnee for disobeying a officer of the law, you have to come with us."
Whitley said not a word as the cuffs latched onto his hands. As if to respect the boy's wishes, There were no one in the crowd, maybe even in Remnant, cheering about the arrest of these two, even though the boy said he had nothing but hatred of those that surround Gélé mocking those that died in Beacon, none of the them wanted nor could cheer, for to celebrate this would be nothing but hallowed.
On route to the department to put the two in the holding cells until they could make bond, the two talked, mostly it was Whitley asking the girl a thousands questions of the culture of the Faunus, the life she lived before becoming a war hero and so on. The poor girl was shaking with overwhelmingness but snapped out of it when Whitley explained something to her.
"This is the second time you saved me from the door of death, thank you, Lady Thyme."
Fiona was slightly confused before slowly piecing together that in the final battle she rushed to the location of downed aircraft, where a gravely injured woman layed under some debris being protected by her white haired son with a mere wooded stick he found on the ground screaming. "GET AWAY! YOU GRIMMS!" before being knocked backwards and then being held by his throat.
"HEY FANG FACES, I'M MORE OF A CHALLENGE THAN THOSE TWO!" The Fanaus screamed while the Grimm let the boy go to blocked her attack.
"KID! TAKE YOUR MOM AND GET OUTTA HERE, I CAN'T HOLD THIS GUY OFF FOREVER!"The boy nodded as he grabbed his mother and ran off, not knowing that he would plan to thank the maiden the next time they meet.
"No freaking way, you're that boy?"
"Yeah...but I'm not proud to admit that I'm not one for fighting." Whitley smiled as this surprised the girl.
To think, the meek boy she saved that one time and the guy who wanted to help others despite his family's reputation were the same person? How would this day become more of a weird fever dream?
"Hey you two, I hate to burst this bubble but ready for a fight, there was another vehicle besides ours that was on their way to the department." A male's voice explained when they noticed a man in a grey cloak sitting in the darkest corner of the vehicle.
"Before you asked, I've been here for the entire trip."
"Why is that important?" The only woman of the three thought while the Schnee youth figured it out.
"That ghoul of a Board Member?"
"'Faid so, he was taken in sometime before your speech and there are only two holding cells in the department, one for men and the other for women." The man explained.
"I could use my semblance to hold him in a..." Fiona was stopped when the mystery man continued.
"...And to prevent any escapes, the cells and those cuffs on your hands are laced with anti-semblance tech."
Fiona screamed. "OH CRAP!"
Whitley was shaken but kept cool as he thought. "I guess as this is a smaller scale city, I should've figured as much."
"Are you actually prepared to die for your ideas?" The man asked the boy, but his answer was simple.
"I'm not planning to back down now, to betray those words I spoke earlier, would be a wicked sin."
Meanwhile in an aircraft a little ways off. Both Weiss and Winter were dumbfounded by their brother's speech and actions. "He has changed so much since weeks ago." The middle child thought before Winter demanded the pilot to land that at the port nearest to the city.
Yang, Kairi, Jaune, Ruby, and Blake were on the aircraft but was confused by the sudden change of directions, before the commander explained. "The Board member that tried to killed our brother was sent to the holding cell in the department before Whitley's speech."
"OH CRAP!" Ruby and Weiss screamed as they thought in dismay that the boy was going to be in an one sided fight against a heavier opponent.
"Please hold on for a bit longer, Younger Brother..." Winter quietly whispered as the Aircraft was going as fast as possible to their destination.
Upon arriving and being settle in the two holding cells, it was when the guards left the redeemer was being used as a punching bag for the man's humiliation.
"DAMN BRATTY ASSED PUNK!"
"UGHHH!" Whitley groaned, being punched for a hour, his clothing became ragged and bloody.
"LEAVE WHITLEY ALONE!" Fiona cried out at the tallest in the men's holding cell, she was in the womens' holding cell that was across the room, luckly for her, she was alone in the women's side but not for Whitley, making things worse is that the guards were sent out on an emergency call, as their thinning numbers were sent out because of a few bomb threats elsewhere in the city.
"SHUT IT, SHEEPIE! I GOING KEEP BEATING THIS BRAT UNTIL HE UNDERSTANDS HIS PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE!"
"..." The man in the hood remained quiet as he watched this uneven fight. "You should stay down..."
"...As if I would..." The Schnee boy rose back to his feet through he knew nothing of throwing punches he refused to surrender just to spite the former Board Member of Phoenix Ash.
"HEH, for a skinny brat, you're stubborn, be a good little boy and admit that you're nothing but a puppet then I'll quit your rightly deserved beatings!"
Whitley regained his balance before flipping a bird claiming. "You...really...think this..puppet would let some smug ass with no respect for anyone but those in the Upper Class to order me around? SCREW....YOU!" The boy yelled spiting blood onto the man's ghoulish face to annoy the monster in human flesh.
"...WHY YOU LITTLE MAGGOT!" The man was even more enraged now, as he punched the stomach of the younger male causing the boy fall onto the cold floor.
Fiona was horrified as she witness the former spoiled prince rose back to his feet.
"Still standing boy?"
The youth was still standing to a point, until the man pulled a dirty shiv he found in the holding cell while waiting for this very moment. The two youths' eyes widden when they saw the makeshift weapon of sharpen hard plastic.
"...A weapon!?" Fiona cried out in dismay.
"Some poor sap must have made this sometime ago, makes me wonder where he could be now, anywho while I am slicing into your flesh, Whitley, I'm going tell what I thought of those pretty little ideas of yours."
The Faunus was in a state of fear for the young puppet CEO as the shiv user quickly sliced into the white haired youth's shoulder, with this the first time being cut, Whitley scream in pain.
"AHHHHGNN!"
"FIRST, YOU WANT TO FREE THE ANIMALS FROM OUR CAGES, THEY HAVE NO RIGHTS TO A FUTURE IN OUR SOCIETY!
The next was a stab on his left upper leg, luckly not hitting anything vitals as makeshift blade of sharp hard plastic was pulled out and blood dripped onto the flooring The boy's screams of pain echoing through the empty department.
"NEXT, WE CAN'T MAKE ANY LIEN IF BLEEDING HEARTS, LIKE WHAT YOU'VE BECOME, ARE IN CHARGE OF THINGS!"
The attacker then sliced the right side of Whitley's face leaving a scar under his eye.
"THE FACE OF THE BOY WITH A NAME THAT NOWS MEANS NOTHING TOTHE WORLD, USING TRUTHS TO PISS ON THE LEGACY THAT JACQUES BUILT, JUST SO HIS SON COULD REBUILD THE HONOR THAT IT HELD WHEN THAT WINDBAG WAS STILL KICKING! WHAT FREAKIN DRIVEL!"
then a slash across his chest.
"THAT BLEEDING HEART OF YOURS WANTING REDEMPTION SO HE COULD HAVE SOME ATTENTION BUT GUESS WHAT THERE'S NO SUCH THING IN THE BUSINESS WORLD OR IN THE REMAINING KINGDOMS OF REMNANT AS REDEMPTION!"
Then the right hand of the boy, the one Whitley pull in front of his body in an poor attempt to grabbed the makeshift Shiv.
"THESE HANDS OF A SOFT SPOILED LITTLE BOY WHO, EVEN IN THE LAST BATTLE AGAINST THE GRIMM FORCES, NEVER THREW A PUNCH OR SLAP ANYONE, ARE SUPPOSED TO CHANGE THE WORLD, ALL YOU HAVE DONE IN THAT BATTLE WERE ORDERING SOLDIERS TO FIGHT FOR YOU, SOLDIERS WHO SHOULD HAVE SEEN WHAT YOU'VE BECOME!"
Finishing this rant with a punch to the gut, and mocking his braverly. "TELL ME THIS, BOY? WHEN THIS SPINE OF YOURS GREW, DID YOUR STUPIDITY DOUBLED, BECAUSE COMPARED TO YOUR DAD, YOU'RE SUCH AN DOLT TO BELIEVE YOUR OWN CRAP!"
"WHITLEY! STOP, YOU'RE KILLING HIM!" Fiona screamed as the man got on top of the boy's body and punch the white haired youth's face twice before the monster yelled at the girl.
"I SAID SHUT IT SHEEP! YOU MAYBE A WAR HERO THAT I CAN'T PUT MY HANDS ON BUT YOU'RE GOING TO WATCH AS THE HOPES OF THIS BOY DIES ALONG WITH HIS BODY!"
Getting off of the beaten body of the Schnee, the man let Whitley try to get up before the boy fell on his stomach and the man grabbed the white hairs of his his head and pulled his face up, so the redeemer would look into Fiona's green eyes for a last time, one filled with tears.
"ACTUALLY, IT'S FUNNY, BECAUSE OF HER STATUS AS A WAR HERO, THE SHEEP WILL GET OUT IN THE END OF THE DAY AND BE ON HER WAY HOME, BUT YOU JUST HAD TO PLAY HERO AND FOR WHAT, WHITLEY SCHNEE?! FOR YOUR REMAINS TO BE MY PUNCHING BAG UNTIL I TRANSFER TO PRISON?....IT'S SO FREAKING SAD THAT I'M LAUGHING MY ASS OFF!"
The redeemer, who's face full of buises, forgotten that this is the case for minor first time offenders but didn't care at all. Ever since Fiona saved his and his mother's lives that day, he would've happily be arrested and be beaten, time after time, so he could thank her. He wanted to smile, to show his savior that he was happy with this outcome, even this meant that his life ended today, but could barely move his face but the only could wheezingly chuckled as tears as swell from his eyes
Before the man could finished Whitley off, a small blackout happened as the doors of the cells opened, Fiona ran to the boy who risked his life just so he could to talk to her. "WHY?!" Fiona cried she held the youth in her arms. "WHY CAN'T MONSTERS LIKE YOU SEE THAT THIS A NEW WORLD, THAT WE CAN BECOME BETTER THAN WE ONCE WERE." The green eyed girl demanded anwers but the man just mocked to anwered the Fuanus.
"Do you think animals like you could understand that only the strong and the Upper Cass are the only ones who have the right to control Remnant. He could have been one of those in control and still have enough Lien to be someone important but he chose to ally with the lower class, and for little lamb he paying for it, dearly."
Putting the boy's head gently on the floor wiping the tears on her sleeve, to hopefully keep friend she made safe for a bit longer, she attempted to use Pocket Demisions to rid the world of this demon, only to realize in the middle of her attack, the power returned and because she ran to help the youth, that she was in the men's holding cell with the real beast.
"....No!" She wimpered.
"Looks like there's some of my fellow board members of Phoenix Ash are still on my side." He smiled wickening as he began to explain their plans. "You see, little Sheep, we figured the boy has a bleeding heart, so to get rid of those childish wishes to loosen our hold, we decided yesterday to make up a plan, the one that you had to prevent. So during that little speech of his, we made a second one on the fly." He continued as he put his hand on an earpiece. "...That one being the threats to distract the guards and that little blackout. Plus thanks to this little device, my semblance to increase my strength with every attack I give, still remains."
"This can't be...." She was scared, as this man that she could taken down a few mere hours ago, was telling the truth when every step he made while approaching Fiona made small cracks in the flooring.
"Damn it, We going need to cause another..." A voice explained though the earpiece before he turned off the equipment's sound option.
"Now, since you annoyed me so much, you're going be my replacement, lamb chops!" The upsuper yelled in bliss as he pulled his fist to punch her small body. She dodged the attack but his second punch connected and sent her flying into the force field door.
"AUHHGGG!" She cried out, recoiling in the pain from her back before noticing the man was coming for her, managing to get up but unable to dodge it completely in this cramped arena. She felt the punch connected with her left arm, braking the bones in the limb, Then a kick to her gut. Knocking her a few inches near Whitley's body.
"....No...."
The youngest of the Schnee clan could only watch in despair through one eye, the two were being broken by a scummy excuse of a human, and the young redeemer of his name could do nothing but watched as his attempt to prove to the world his words were real go down in flames.
"...Leave...her...alone..." These words spit out ignoring the pain as much as he could while rising back to his feet and limping to get in between the Faunus woman and her attacker.
"So, the boy still has some fighting spirit...The boy that has never fought for anything in his life, I am certain that you're doing this for everyone's attention."
The man was right on a few things, Whitley was never a fighter or some ground troop, and it may have been that he wanted attention when he first started to go down this road but Winter quickly knocked that idea out of his head, but the man is wrong on others, for Whitley realize that all he wanted to do in life is to help in anyway, even he'll be happy as a sideliner act to the main heroes.
But one can't always stay in that role and hoped to change the world, for a long time he stood by as a witness to to his father's crimes, for longer his thoughts of heroism being dismissed by that bogus excuse of a father and as far as he remembered, Whitley had others fight for him. But no more!
"In this world, money and power pull the strings, and yet you choose death for a flithy animal? How more times are you going to PISS M-!" The man was interrupted while talking by, to the surprise of all, the white haired boy headbutting his taller foe, knocking the man onto his ass!
"...WHAT!?" The man screamed in horror as he started to bleed from his now broken nose, this was the first time the business man has ever seen his own blood.
"...I've...told...the world...I...would die for my dream....even if I die today....I'll be happy to die...hundred times over again..." The boy's body was mostly broken, each word he spoke caused more pain than his body could stand but the young man still had one part of his body to fight with, his hard head!
The next thing they all knew, Whitley continued headbutting his enemy, causing the man to gain a reality check, his ability were increasing his attacks but at a certain cost, The sole major weak point on his body, the one that held the brain to think of ways to screwed others over, the one with the eyes that saw everyone else as beneath him and the one with the mouth with a booming voice he used to make threats and promises to ruin his foes, his face weaken over time with every punch or kick he gave to the two.
"NONONONONO!" The man screamed with a bloodied and bruised face, before feeling the same despair he installed into his two victims just mere minutes ago. In a desperate attempt to stop these attacks, he grabbed the man in the cloak as a hostage, with the shiv he used on the boy still in his possession.
"You-ou wouldn't w-wan...me to stab some r-random person that had nuthing to do with this, uh?!" These ragged words were like the man himself, desperate and scummy, but was enough to stop the boy from getting closer.
The foe laughed thinking he has the upper hand. "I admired your old man's talent in making a profit, but he was just like you to a certain point, he was no killer, so now I advise we wait until they let us out or I'll be plunging..."
"Tsk...This old fart really been pissing me off since we got here!"
The cloaked man yelled as he stepped on the foot of his captor along with a gunshot ringing though the air. "W-WHAT!?" The man screamed in pain as he released his hold to grabbed his now bleeding foot. "DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT!" The larger man screamed before realizing why his leg strength wasn't up to snuff. While being headbutted by his Whitley, the earpiece fell out and was behind his two victims!
"No way this is happening...." He groaned in pain before the cloaked male took off his hood, just to make things worse for the would be assassin.
"...and here I thought I would have a peaceful life in prison..." The man sighed as he revealed himself to be a fomer ally of Salem, one who wanted nothing more but to rot in prisons for the remaining of his life.
"M-Mercury B-B-Black, why is a war criminal here?!" The man screamed, fearing for his life even more than before.
"I was supposed to transfer into the next city, mostly for some good behavior BS..." Mercury turned his attention to the white haired boy.
"Hey kid, you're the brother to that girl Weiss, right?"
"....." Whitley wanted to say something but really couldn't, with those last few headbutts, if he tried to speak now, he will surely faint.
"Man, the geezer really did a number on you, huh?" Mercury asked before = one of the guards and Whitley's sisters ran in.
"Holy...CRAP! WHITLEY!!"
"Why is our brother and Miss Thyme in the same cell as these two?!" Winter demanded answers before Mercury explained for panicing guard while pulling the earpiece from the ground.
"Whitley was being used by lord lard ass as a punching bag until few people from Pheonix Ash caused a short blackout, the girl ran in to stopped the beatings but was attacked as well until your little bro figuring out the buzzard's weakness by headbutting the man in his freakin' face. After that, The creep tried to use me as levelage but yeah, you can see how that worked out."
"DAMNED BRATS...." The man groaned as the two Schnee women got Whitley and Fiona out of this cell but froze in fear when he saw Winter staring down at the man.
"I figured that your group would pulled something like this when Whitley told me of the CEO position, so I looked into yours and the rest of the board's backgrounds...It was just as Black said, You and your three friends in the board of eight have more than just attempted assassination to worry about now."
This decree was worrying enough before Mercury Black turned his attention back to the older man."I guess I'm going to have a kicking dummy for a roommate now!"
"Please have mercy!" The man turned deathly pale before Fiona yelled.
"Like the mercy you shown to me and Whitley because he called out your sorry butt, I would think not!"
Weiss was next to insult the man for his behavior. "...If anything you deserve nothing but a fate in a cage, like the various futures you took away!"
"Looks like you're going to rot in a cell for the rest of your sad existence." Winter finished before the guards were told by the military commander to take her younger brother out of the room and to take his would be assassin to the other cell.
Before leaving, Winter asked the former ally of Salem.
"Mercury Black...Your sentence for your war crimes have been over with for a couple of months now, yet, you still choose to remain in prison, may I ask why?"
"Since Cinder died in the fight against our former partner and Salem's redemption attempt, I really don't have much else left. Besides it's like I've said during that battle with the hammerhead and her pretty boy lover, I have been forced to fight since I was born by a drunk abusive excuse of a dad, so even if I could be let back into society, I don't think I could be happy."
"You could've joined the military..." The eldest member of the Schnee replied before the younger male countered
"Yeah, but I hate following and giving orders, besides you've seen what this old bastard done to your brother, creeps like him and worse are everywhere in prison. So as long as I can beat them senseless, I'm freaking happy to serve more time for each brawl I get my ass into."
This silenced Winter for a couple of seconds before asking for two simple demands. "Just tell Em that I'm okay with how things ended between us, and tell her just to be happy with her new life, if she can do that, then that would give me some sort of peace."
A couple of hours later at the medical bay on the airship.
Kairi used the healing spell Curaga on both the boy and Fiona. "Thank you, Lady Kairi." Fiona bowed while still having her arm in a cast after Whitley opened his eyes, being healed.
"Hey, it's not a problem, but please, just call me Kairi for now on, okay, Fiona?"
"Ughh, what...Fiona..are you alright?" The redeemer asked his friend.
"Yes, but you took the blunt of the beating, please relax, Whitley." The Fanuas explained before the boy asked.
"Who payed for our bails? I doubt it was my sisters, our situation isn't as it once was."
At that moment, Weiss and Blake came in, the disowned heiress of the destroyed SDC was proud at the fact that her former enemy of a brother fought for what's right, explaining. "It those three you poined out from that charity that payed for your and Fiona's bonds."
"Huh?!" Fiona was taken back in surprise by this before the middle child of the Schnee family theorized
"My guess is, either your speech or being outed as horrible people that made those three pay with their own Lien to post bond. I only wished we got there quicker but the airport was on the other side of the city."
"That's good but I can only hope that the others in the crowd took my words to heart and none of the people recording that day alter the video."
...We can check for video or audio interferances later on today but something tells me those who heard your speech that they're going be thinking about it for a long time." Blake's words made the youngest member of the Schnee children a little more eased.
"If only mother lived to see her son became someone to be proud of." Weiss thought to herself that day before their last mission in Remnant before her universe was wiped from existence.
In the Hangar of the doomed Wunder, Weiss had a thought of what could've been the futures of the new CEO of Pheonix Ash and his loyal bodyguard could have been if their universe just lasted a little bit longer.
"Hey, Bozos I'm about to take the Eva-unit 02 F off of the ship, before figuring out a plan to stop Misato."
"Alright.." Aqua answered as the red-head walked towards the console before seeing something strange.
"You guys were here for the last hour right?"
"Yeah?" Duo answered before Asuka added.
"And no one else came in or tried anything funny right?"
"We've been here the entire time, what's with the questions, Langley?" Viral countered.
"...There's two signals of heat in the cockpit...."
"Umm what?" Jaune exclaimed as the console showing the statistics of the bulky armored version of Unit 02, showing two bodies of heat in the entry plug.
Before anything else was said in the group. A young male's voice came through the console. "Umm Hello? Can someone get us out of this thing?"
No one but the Schnee huntress recognize the youth's voice. "Whitley!?"
"Sis, can you hear me?"
Asuka spoke next, "How long were you two in the Evangelion for?"
"I think for three hours, oh right, Fi wanted to asked if there's any males in the area."
"Fiona's in there too?!" Wiess inner thoughts were of panic that were made worse after Jaune's answer.
"Yeah, there's four guys here, why?" Jaunne asked before Fiona screamed in embrassament.
"PLEASE GO TO THE OTHER ROOM OR SOMETHING, I CAN'T GO OUT LIKE THIS!"
"Fi, please relax..."
"RELAX!? YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE IN THIS THING WITH CLOTHES ON!" The girl whined while crying from embarrassment.
"Umm, could anyone bring clothing for Miss Thyme."
Duo began to smirked before being dragged by Viral into the next room. "Keep your dirty thoughts to yourself, Duo Maxwell..."
"Killjoy!" Duo screamed as Jonathan conviced Jaune to followed.
"Sir Arc, we should leave as well, as it is knights' honor to..."
"Already way ahead of you, Mr. Joestar. We'll see you all later when we come up with that plan!"
As this was all happening, an snore echoed out from behind the crates. "Is someone sleeping over there?" Aqua asked while checking to see who it might be.
There, Chibodee Crocket, of all people was in deep slumber, much to everyone's surprise.
"...We should wake him up..." Asuka sighed while Weiss went looking for any of the female members of the crew for some clothing.
But to the surprise of the two, he just walked into the next room while sleeping the entire time. "That...worked out way to well..."

TL;DR - First time parents, wife is suffering from what seems like prenatal depression and anxiety, idk how to help her or myself. I feel so alone.
My wife and I recently found out that we were going to have our first. Having a baby is something we’ve been talking about for a while now and we were really excited to start trying but now that it happened, things are way harder than we expected. Due to a few medical issues we always thought that it would be hard to have a baby but that wasn’t the case at all so when she got pregnant so fast it was a shock to my wife. We’re both young professionals, good jobs, good families, savings; but due to what seems like pregnancy related depression and anxiety my wife is having a really hard time dealing with the changes in her mood and body (panic attacks at night, random crying during the day, feelings of being alone, being scared to be left alone, feeling that we aren’t ready for this, that our lives are over and that our new life with the baby will be terrible because it won’t be just us anymore, etc).
I’m doing my absolute best to help her through this, tell her that we’re still going to be ourselves and that this baby will enhance what we already have and that our families will rally behind us and make sure that we have help. It’s hard enough being an expecting parent with all the worries of “what if the baby isn’t healthy? what if my wife doesn’t make it through labor? What if we mess this up?” And now add ontop of it that I’m not sleeping, have been extremely stressed, and am slowly feeling that I’m getting deeper into a black whole.
My in-laws know because my wife needed the support of her mom and her dad found out bc he saw her crying one day. But because my wife isn’t herself and isn’t feeling the joy of being an expecting mom yet, she doesn’t want another living soul knowing. That means my family, my friends (whose wives know her), I have zero support myself. It’s hard being around my family bc she can cry or have a bad moment at the drop of a hat. Constant worry.
I’m here because I needed to get this off my chest. I so so so bad want to be excited and get into my dad era but I can’t bc I’m focused on supporting her. I’ve taken the stance of “Im a man, her husband, im going to do whatever it takes to make sure her and this baby are ok” but I feel so alone and am starting to get depressed myself. I guess, has anyone gone through this?

Last week in a post-deleted by the OP, there was discussion about how there is no point in stockpiling antibiotics and any attemps for lay people to practice any form of health care in a widespread grid down disaster.
Myself and some colleagues wrote: Survival and Austere Medicine https://corom.org/survival-austere-medicine/ . We are slowing working on a 4th edition with some new material and minor corrections - but it is taking longer than we thought!
But I thought given the above post, I would take the opportunity to post the introduction - which address the "why bother" question for a major long-term grid down situation. Apologies for the formatting and length
"There is a sense, when considering the issues around survival medicine practice, that everything is overwhelming, that it is impossible for lay people to provide a high level of medical care and maintain a high level of population health.
We don’t think this is the case at all. We believe that intelligent lay people with some basic medical knowledge, skills, and equipment can deliver high quality health care. While it is obviously impossible for lay people to safely and competently deal with every medical problem, and there remain many complicated diagnoses requiring equally complicated or technologically advanced treatments, for 80- 90% of the health problems afflicting humanity, simple things done well are all that is required to preserve life and limb and help alleviate suffering.
Consider the following:
1. Remote Medicine Practice:
Below are the results of one of our author’s experience in the provision of health care in various remote and austere locations (some third world, some first world) to nearly four thousand people over a cumulative 30-month period (spread over 18 years) – with more data there are few minor changes from the 2005 2nd edition, but the list is essentially the same – which is interesting. The record keeping was a bit unreliable at times, but the following summary is reasonably accurate.
Top 20 presentations (representing > 95% of consultations):
1. Minor musculoskeletal injuries - ankle sprains most common, included many minor fractures which didn’t require more than diagnosis and simple care
2. Upper respiratory tract infections
3. Allergic reactions/Hay feveAnaphylactic reactions/Rashes
4. Minor open wounds – included a mix of lacerations needing closure, many needing
cleaning and advice only, and some infected wounds
5. Gastroenteritis/Vomiting/Diarrhoea
6. Mental health problems
7. Sexual health/Contraceptive problems
8. Skin infections/Cellulitis
9. Dental problems
10. Abdominal pain - 4 confirmed acute appendix (2 treated with IV antibiotics and
subsequent delayed appendix removal / 2 required evacuation) + 1 gangrenous gall bladder. Many were "no cause found". Of the remainder with a clear diagnosis the most common were renal or biliary colic)
11. Fever /Viral illness
12. Chest infections
13. Major musculoskeletal injuries (fractures/dislocations)
14. Asthma
15. Ear infections
16. Urinary tract infections
17. Burns – mostly partial thickness within the realms of management in the environment the
patient was in. Several required evacuations. Several required rehabilitation due to location and sub-optimal initial treatment.
18. Chest pain
19. Syncope/Collapse/Faints
20. Early pregnancy problems
Major trauma was uncommon but was seen including several fractured femurs and a dozen cases of multi-system severe trauma resulting in a mix of in-country surgery and evacuations
Top 12 prescribed drugs (representing >90% of medications prescribed):
1. Paracetamol (Acetaminophen)
2. Loratadine (and other assorted antihistamines)
3. Diclofenac (and other assorted antiinflammatories)
4. Combined oral contraceptive
5. Flucloxacillin
6. Throat lozenges
7. Augmentin (Amoxycillin + clavulanic acid)
8. Loperamide
9. Nystatin (and other antifungals)
10. Hydrocortisonecream
11. Ventolininhalers(Salbutamol/Albuterol)
12. Morphine
What is of note here is that the clear majority of problems dealt with are simple and straight forward – there is still potential for serious consequences but there is scope for a well-informed lay person with a basic knowledge and access to a reasonable collection of reference books to provide reasonable care. Equally the vast majority of medication prescribed are from a very narrow well defined list – despite the fact 1000’s of drugs are on the market – the list of core lifesaving or comfort preserving ones is relatively brief.
2. Why children die
The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified the following conditions as having contributed to >75% of worldwide deaths in the under 5-year age group (in no particular order):
Pneumonia Pneumonia is an infection of lungs. Prevention of this condition is somewhat limited – although good nutrition, clean and warm housing, and a reduction in the exposure to respiratory irritants (smoke) all can help. However, the most common bacteria which cause pneumonia are frequently sensitive to penicillin – which is discussed later in the book and can be produced in a low-tech environment.
Diarrhea Death from diarrhea (dehydration) is almost 100% preventable with appropriate use of oral rehydration therapy. Dirty water or poor food handling causes much diarrhea – this can be virtually eliminated by proper hygiene practices and care with drinking water.


Pre-term delivery While we are limited in the direct interventions available in an austere environment to mitigate this problem contributing factors to early labor are young age, malnutrition, smoking, poor maternal health, so there is scope for indirect intervention based on optimizing mum’s health and environment. For babies who are born prematurely the necessities of life are warmth and breast milk. With attention to detail for both things, it is possible for infants as young as 33-34 weeks to survive without high-tech intervention.
Malaria. Prevention is better than a cure, knowledge about clearing stagnant water, mosquito nets and long sleeved clothes can significantly reduce the risk. Equally quinine is derived from the bark of the Chincona tree and the Chinese have been using the herb, Artemisinin, effectively for the treatment of Malaria for years. So, while not as easy to treat or prevent as diarrhea, there is still scope for significant reduction in death rates in low-tech ways.
Blood infection Blood infection or septicemia is rapidly fatal. The ability to intervene depends on the cause of the infection and antibiotics available. Broadly, infections causing septicemia can originate from the skin, the lungs, the kidneys or bladder, and the abdominal contents. While specific treatments for these may be lacking in an austere environment – all have prevention strategies and basic low-tech treatments that can be lifesaving when applied appropriately.
Lack of oxygen at birth Of these problems, this is the one with probably the least scope for impact. Unfortunately, even if foetal distress is detected during labor (with heart beat monitoring or signs of distress like meconium), without the ability to deliver the baby quickly options are limited. That said, a caesarian section is not a massively complicated operation (and discussed in Chapter 10), and in parts of the third world is performed by trained lay people with safety and success.
Measles Again, there is limited scope to intervene directly with the disease. Measles is always around and while vaccination reduced the incidence of epidemics, sporadic cases still occur. In the absence of vaccinations epidemics of measles every few years will be inevitable. There is however some scope to minimize the spread during an epidemic with isolation and respiratory precautions during outbreaks. While some of the serious neurological complications are unavoidable in a
Prevention is better than a cure, knowledge about clearing stagnant water, mosquito nets and long sleeved clothes can significantly reduce the risk. Equally quinine is derived from the bark of the Chincona tree and the Chinese have been using the herb, Artemisinin, effectively for the treatment of Malaria for years. So, while not as easy to treat or prevent as diarrhea, there is still scope for significant reduction in death rates in low-tech ways. small number of patients, basic care such as maintaining hydration can also prevent complications such as dehydration.
Neonatal tetanus The prevention of neonatal tetanus is easy. You don’t let the site where the umbilical cord attaches to the baby get dirty. It is as simple as that.
HIV/AIDS Prevention of maternal infection is the key to prevention of infection of newborns. The steps required to prevent exposure to the HIV virus are widely known: abstinence (not undertaking sexual activity), monogamy (maintaining a single sex partner rather than multiple) and if neither is a palatable option, then safe sexual practices.
Most the conditions above have an element of either preventability or the ability to be treated to some degree in an austere environment and significant improvements in mortality and morbidity can be made.

3. The greatest advances in medicine
Several years ago the British Medical Journal ran a poll trying to identify top medical advances of the last 200 years. The following is the top 12 from that poll:
Sanitation 1st Antibiotics 2nd Anaesthesia 3rd Vaccines 4th DNA 5th Germ theory 6th = The oral contraceptive 6^th = Evidence based medicine 8th Imaging 9th Computers 10th Oral rehydration therapy 11th Smoking cessation 12th =
Just as with our discussion above about the causes of childhood deaths, this list is introduced to show just how much impact a very basic health care knowledge can have in terms of optimising health in a post-disaster or austere situation.
Of the biggest advances of medicine in the last 200 years, between 7 to 9 (depending on your knowledge and available resources) of the 12 can be applied to care in a austere situation. In particular, the knowledge of sanitation, germ theory, oral rehydration therapy, and simple manufactured antibiotics and anaesthetic agents all have the potential to be able to be continued to be applied in a post-disaster situation and to continue to contribute to a high quality of low-tech health care. In the same way that we can substantially reduce childhood death rates in a low tech post-disaster situation, we can still continue to have access to some of the biggest advances in medicine even at the end of the world.
4. Surgery in the third world
A non-specialist surgeon working at a isolated bush hospital in Papua New Guinea published his experience of Emergency Surgery over a 14 month period (similar articles have been published with similar data):
Emergency Surgery 243
Tendon repair 33 Open orthopaedics 32 Dilation and curettage 31 General surgery 29 Incision and drainage 26 Laceration repair 26 Obstetrics 23 Manipulation under anaesthesia 15 Urology 15 Gynaecology 9 Ear, nose and throat 2
Emergency anaesthesia 243
Ketamine – spontaneous breathing 166 Local anaesthesia 33 Ketamine – ventilated 16 Spinal anaesthesia 12 Propofol / thiopentone 10 Epidural 5 Epidural / GA 1
The point of this reference is to help illustrate what someone can achieve in primitive conditions with no formal surgical training and no dedicated anaesthetist. We are not suggesting that the average layperson can safely practice to this extent or breadth of surgery, but it does demonstrate that a non-surgeon can achieve much. It also shows that most anaesthetics for surgery in an austere situation can be done under local or ketamine anaesthetics.
Why this is relevant?
Each of these four references gives you insights, one way or another, into low-tech austere health care. First, it gives you an insight into the likely clinical problems that you may see in a survival situation, and how much can be dealt with in that sort of austere environment. Second, it demonstrates how medically speaking it is the small things and simple knowledge which save lives and some of the biggest killers can be mitigated with these relatively low level interventions or strategies.
In our opening summary – “Medicine at that end of the world”, we describe a pretty bleak medical reality post-SHTF. Will million’s really die from lack of access to modern heath care as we have alleged?
The short answer is yes – many will die much sooner than they otherwise would have, from disease and injury, which currently are not immediately fatal. But the answer is not nearly that simple nor bleak. The reality is that while cancer, diabetes, malnutrition or serious injury may claim many of its victim’s sooner than with today’s health care, most health problems can be treated or mitigated to a degree in a low- tech environment, with a narrow range of medications and interventions – including some cancers, non- insulin requiring diabetes and many major traumatic injuries.
Most medical problems are relatively mundane and not life threatening. Truly catastrophic problems in medicine are fortunately rare. You should focus on learning and preparing to deal with the common problems, and doing common procedures well, and you will save lives, and possibly also improve the quality of those lives.
There will be a significant change to health care but with knowledge and some preparation it isn’t quite as dire as many (including our own opening paragraph) predict. "

Hello, maybe someone has a tip for me. I have suffered from seborrheic eczema on my scalp for years. I use T-Gel, another shampoo with clotrimazole and apple cider vinegar, which helps a lot. Now I'm pregnant and can no longer use some things and my scalp is starting to itch again. What could I safely use during pregnancy? I'm desperate.

Day 0!
5/13, total lap, took uterus, cervix, tubes, and did a bladder check. Edit: both ovaries intact.
I checked in about 840, surgery about 1040. One final pregnancy test. The staff was amazing (except the anaesthesiologist was a bit of a dick to one of the nurses, I didn’t like that-I think I might be reporting that… but he was fine to me). Even my gyno who I wasn’t a fan of during our appointments, I could tell surgery is where she was meant to be. I met my OR nurse, anaesthesiologist, and my gyno/surgeon in pre-op where every single person (plus surgical day care nurse) went over everything with me again and again, and ensured I was comfortable with what we were planning to do, and confirmed that barring any issues, my catheter would be removed during surgery, and then a camera check up the urethra and into the bladder. There was a slight hiccup in something in the lab with my pre op blood work where they listed me as a c section (ABSOLUTELY NOT) and something in the test regarding transfusion expired within 3 days and I did my pre op Thursday. I was worried it was going to delay things but since I have been fortunate and never had a transfusion (and the surgeon believed me and didn’t want her day messed up, plus they had the Thursday results) they called the lab, they were there super quick, and it was drawn up then I was wheeled in to the OR. Once in the OR they had me transfer onto the table, got me situated, introduced the surgical team, and my surgeon went over everything one last time while I was still conscious and made sure everyone was on the same page and ready to go. I was given oxygen and told to take a few deep breaths, and then they started pumping meds into my IV and I was out.
From what I hear (my surgeon called my mom/pickup person) it all went like clockwork. I was out in under two hours, into recovery to wake up and when I came to, three nurses (or health care workers, whatever their role, but I think RNs) were chatting about me near my bedside on how I had a lack of requirements before I could be discharged. I don’t think they realised or expected me to be awake so quickly but I said I had been told that as soon as I could walk to the bathroom and pee on my own, I could leave. They looked a little shocked. Not sure if because I was awake or because I knew what I needed to do.
I did say in recovery to my nurse that I felt like I needed to pee, but they wanted me to wait until the hour was up in recovery and I was transferred back to surgical day care.
Once I was in day care I was given juice, digestive cookies and my phone and started texting my mom, who was right outside, and said I was back to where she could come see me. The person at the desk at the front tried not to let her in and said I wasn’t back yet (not sure if there was a lack of communication or no) but mom insisted I was texting her and telling her I was back, and the woman from the desk had to come in and check for herself that I was back… and asked my nurse-who was again nearby-and I heard the front desk woman muttering and said something about “her mom”. I piped up and said don’t try to stop her from coming in, she won’t go away and she would get in either way, I’m texting with her now. The woman didn’t like that much, but my nurse laughed and okay’d her coming in.
Nurse back in day care listened to me pretty quick, did her checks and made she I could sit/stand and disconnected my IV line. She walked me to the bathroom to make sure I was okay. I peed without issue-it was a bit tender coming out but no burning… but man. Maybe bring your own toilet paper. That rough stuff is even rougher when you’re sensitive😳
I felt immediately better cause now I knew they could let me out once my final hour in recovery was complete. Another glass of juice, some more post op checks done, and I was able to get my IV out. (I know most people wouldn’t like IVs but it was a huge hang up for me… my veins suck and it was tender and once they confirmed I could leave I wanted it GONE.
Passed the rest of the time chatting, going over discharge paperwork/instructions, then I was given the official go ahead to change and leave. Slow going, changing, and man the hospital pads are atrocious (and no wings?!). I peed once more, hating the toilet paper but loved the mesh ish shorts they gave me and asked for a couple more, and they gave me two or three more. I was allowed to leave just after 230pm.
I was able to walk out of the hospital on my own two feet. Slowly, but walking and being upright felt much better than sitting. The nurse said it was allowed as long as mom was right there (which she obviously was) in case I got dizzy. We walked out to the front entrance (elevator, no stairs of course), and I stood at a safe spot where I could sit if I needed to, while she went and got the car from the far side of the lot. I probably could have walked it, but it was slow and didn’t want to chance anything.
The ride home was a bit rough-I forgot my pillow and I think that would have helped. Held my hands/palms onto my lower belly for some support. It was manageable, I wasn’t crying out in pain or anything, but definitely internally felt every little bump despite mom trying her best to avoid them.
I’m staying in my own apartment, (parent’s offered me to stay at theirs but I’m far more comfy in my own place, and no stairs) my dad’s sleeping on the couch while my pup is at the house with my mom and their two dogs. So far I’ve been able to manage on my own but it’s nice knowing he’s here incase I need something. When I got home, much to my dad’s chagrin (he wanted to do it for me), I made myself buttered toast, had an ice cream sandwich, some arrowroot cookies, a Tylenol and after eating upright and walking in circles a bit, I went to my bed with my heating pad, pregnancy pillow and about 8462619 other pillows I adjusted as needed. I’m very happy I had a pregnancy pillow. I was debating getting the wedges but decided with the option of Amazon same day/next day delivery, if I changed my mind it wouldn’t be long without it.
Obviously there’s more internal room now, but a heads up-I’ve peed a few times since getting home (it’s near 1am) I have noticed that “hmm I need to pee” turns quickly into “YUP GOTTA GO” when I stand up. I think that little bit extra gravity assist hits when I stand. No burning, still just a bit sensitive, but I bought a peri care bottle with a nozzle on it and is it a game changer. The hospital gave me one but it didn’t have an angled nozzle, which to me is useless unless I want to climb in my shower every time or end up with water all over my floor. First time I used it, I just rinsed with cool water multiple times as it was soothing (not going into the vagina).
There’s been very little blood so far-some spotting but not much.
The pain? Feels like a concentrated day 2 of my usual bad periods, with low back pain (helped greatly with heating pad). Like most of us here… we’re used to heavy pain so it’s not all that unbearable.
I was given tramadol, and didn’t take my first one until 9pm. Didn’t love the feeling. And my limbs started tingling which was weird. That’s supposed to be a withdrawal effect. But my body doesn’t handle drugs well so could just be me. I’ll see what happens later in the night if I need something else, I’ll take it. But so far the pain/discomfort is reminding me not to sleep how i normally do-on my side with my leg up toward my abdomen.
I’ve got my naproxen and Tylenol that the pharmacy okay’d me to take instead of Advil and Tylenol.
Forgot to mention-my throat is a bit sore, but not nearly what I expected. Feels like I just spent some time around a campfire where the smoke randomly followed me. One Halls seemed to help, and of course, ice cream sandwiches 😂.
And now to wait for meeting the real me after 20+ years of being on oral birth control… should be some definite hormonal swings during recovery plus that, but can’t wait😂🤦🏻‍♀️
Edit: one thing I did that I haven’t seen posted otherwise in this subreddit is that I put a cooling cloth, soaked in water, in a ziplock bag, and stuck it laying down flat in my freezer before surgery. I don’t think I really needed to, but I had that laying (with clothing on and a tea towel wrapped around it) on my lower belly and it molded perfectly as it melted a tad, and felt great. I wasn’t told not to ice it, I wasn’t told to ice it, but I figure as long as it feels good, it’s not damaging anything or getting anything wet. Might be something for others to consider! I wouldn’t want the weight of a large ice pack or anything on me right now, but just that in the ziplock with a light pillow overtop was perfect.

Hello, I was pregnant for two months Novembe December and then I was not. It was an extremely rough time for me. I was doing everything that I could to have safe sex at the time and yet a baby still appeared, the feeling while pregnant was the strongest feeling of just pure primal I will protect you kind of feeling that I had ever had, and then within just a week may be less of finding out that I was pregnant I had a miscarriage. The only people who knew about it were three of the people the closest to me. I can't help but watch all of the milestones pass me by and not feel something. It is more bittersweet feeling than anything at this point. I feel so much love for my unborn child than anything during these holidays like Mother's Day. I had said something like how things had gone differently I would have almost been considered a mother on Mother's Day to two of those 3 people I had mentioned before, and it created an awkward feeling that I was not intending but just for once wanted to voice my feelings and thoughts on it without feeling pitied by them. Most times I just feel at peace now, I think my baby is somewhere peaceful.
Now the second part of this because I want to get this all out. My family is uber Christian and basically forced me to tell them that I was having sex even though that really was none of their business and that I am an adult. So now anytime I tell them about any issues that I may have that may overlap with pregnancy they feel the need to point it out, each and every time. Not even just with that, if they can make a connection between me and pregnancy they will. They are also narcissists which means I cannot explode on them or anything or i will be gaslit into thinking that I was somehow in the wrong. They just hurt me so much in this way, and I refuse to tell them that I was ever pregnant to begin with because that would just lead to so much more pain for me.
Overall, I miss my baby, and this has affected me more, longer, and in ways that I never knew/ thought that a miscarriage could affect me before.

My sister was diagnosed with bipolar 4 years ago. She has had two manic episodes and is now currently in her third. It’s been a rough 4 years . If she is not in a manic episode she is in an extreme depression. She was given medication but after she is released she stops taking it and turns to cannabis. She has a lot of angry and resentment towards me because she doesn’t believe she is unwell and thinks I caused her life to unravel. She has become very hostile to me and began sending me mean messages and threatening me. I blocked her on all accounts as it was becoming too much. She began talking about suing the hospital and everyone involved in her hospitalization. She even came to my work and spoke to security and made a lie that I attacked her and beat her up even though I haven’t see her in months. I was forced to tell my bosses and HR about the situation. I believe it was an attempt to get me fired or reprimanded at work. She has lashed out on my brother and mother as well and has willfully become homeless. She even called the cops on my brother and made up a lie that he was beating her up. The police and dispatcher knew she was lying. She vows to ruin our lives as she blames us for her being committed.
After her 1st manic episode, we became roommates and I supported her for two years financially and essentially became her caregiver. She did not work and did very little around the house. At the time, I didn’t push too hard since she was grieving from a major loss and the new diagnosis. She was going through and incredibly hard time. After 2 years though, it had a huge toll on me and I had to move on my own because she was refusing to see doctors, appointments, take medication and I realized I was enabling her. It was also extremely stressful trying to hold everything together so she moved back to my mother’s. This is where she had her 2nd manic episode.
During her 2nd manic episode, she physically hurt me. It wasn’t severe but I was pushed against the wall and slapped a few times and she refuses to believe she did that. She also destroyed my things and broke my bike. Although, I know she is sick I would be lying if I said I am not hurt and angry for the ways she’s hurt me during her episodes. In her current episode, she is not living at my mothers or with me and is essentially living on the streets. She has gotten in physical altercations with these new “friends” she is hanging out with and I’m terrified for her. I’m also terrified that if she finds me or sees me she will attack me because she believes I’ve taken her stuff and owe her money. I don’t.
I’m worried about her safety but I don’t know how to support her without putting myself in harms way.
I’ve lost one sister to mental illness and I’m terrified of losing another one. I love her so much and I don’t know how I can help her but keep myself safe and not to be hurt or taken advantage of again.

I don't really no where to start. I feel I've lost myself, consumed with anxiety and guilt and fear and regret and I fear, this new fear, that it's going to be the end of me if I don't start to get it out in some way, shape or form.
I guess I'll begin at the beginning...
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I had a difficult childhood with fairly neglectful parents. A mother who openly expressed she never felt she really stepped into her mom shoes until she gave birth to my younger sister, who is three years younger than me. She is my only sibling. My mother told me when I was a kid that she "had to love me", but when my sister came around "she was finally a mother and over the moon", or simply "I always always wanted a girl". I'm not sure if this could be attributed to Post-partum depression, not that she ever researched that or was daignosed with it. That's probably just me trying to pardon my mother or something to the effect. She was 17 when she had me and I'm sure times were different then, my parents both were raised religious, father christian, mother mormon. Maybe their guilt. I ask myself why they brought me into this world if I wasn't wanted to begin with. Or, give me up for adoption to a set of guardians that would have loved me better. I know I was an accident and that's not what gets me down, I get that life be lifing and what happened happened. My difficulties stem from the feeling that my presence never gave my mother any sense of purpose, responsibility or love, or concern. She was emotionally unavailable to me virtually my entire life and I feel like that caused many issues later in my life and how I perceive myself and what I deserve. Coupled with the fact that my neglect met such extremes that I am frankly shocked that I was never picked up by child care services, maybe things were different in the 90's. I'm not sure, I was just a child then.
Much of my upbringing I didn't receive a lot of the things most people would consider essential. As a baby my crib was the sock drawer, then I grew large enough to have a closet, then slept on the floor of a walk-in closet, then I had a single bed from what I recall for maybe a year or maybe two years and I remember feeling metal springs poke me in the my ribs and I recall it being uncomfortable enough for me to move back to sleeping on the floor next to the ratty old used mattress my father found from who knows where. I remember feeling like I had to keep that secret, that the mattress they gave me was uncomfortable enough for me to sneak sleeping on the floor next to it. I think I was really afraid as coming across as ungrateful. My father came from a third world country, so the "gratefullness issue" was address frequently by my mom because "I don't have it even half as bad as what my father had to endure. And she was probably right. But it just silenced me ultimately, didn't put things into a mature context for me. I just learned that I can't complain about anything ever. Anyway, that trend didn't really change when I grew older. grade 9-10 I was sleeping on the living room couch so my sister could have privacy and a bedroom to exist in for herself - which I realize is important for an individual so I encouraged her to have the bedroom. Although I figured my parents expected me to do this for my sister regardless. I was okay with making sacrfices for those I love, it was instilled in me from a very very young age.
I do feel like my father took advantage of me in the form of labour as well, having to do custodial work with my father from 10pm to 3am, at two highschools I believe he was contracted, at that young age I honestly enjoyed just spending time with my father I think, working alongside him. When I was in grade 2 and 3 I had garbage bag duty for all the students bathrooms, and I remember loving snapping the bags open by rushing air into the bag and making it blow up like a baloon. I remember the scary unlit shadowy hallways that I couldn't perceive the ends of. No bodies to see, it felt eerie but exciting in a way - like it was a whole different world.
School was a different experience for me. It was very stressful, my parents had to move a few times a year because they would dodge rent or just generally be selfish with their dual income. They loved to party hard on the weekends. I remember wondering why my father did this to himself all the time. Hoping that we could spend quality time on a saturday, but he wouldnt get out of bed until just before dinner. I didn't really understand hangovers or alcoholism and how it meant our plans would get cancelled. I think I remember trying to wrap my head around willful self-poisoning for entertainment and how could that be more enjoyable then spending time with your son? I couldn't tell my mother why I was so sad about it. Why I didn't want to move again and again and again. Why I found it so difficult to make new friends everytime I had to switch schools. Why I couldn't just do one single full school year with one class of students. It was so hard and at the time, I didn't know anything different. It was so hard to make friends and I think it created this approach to making a "new family" of friends when I became a teenager and young adult.
​
I remember always wanting to be a "good kid". The "best kid" for my parents. I feel like my parents attached this moniker to me that made things harder for me to mature into a rounded adult later in life. My parents always flaunted me as this point of accomplishment, the accomplishment that I was "so extremely well behaved". I would strive to be super polite, and a good host, try to help out when my parents had their friends over, literally fill their cups when the opportunity presented themselves. I think I did this because I must have made the conclusion that if I was quiet, super polite, helpful and useful then I had value. That I could be loved. That I could earn this love from my parents through acts of service.
I remember feeling like my sister and I had extremely different experiences growing up. When my parents were at work I took care of her, cleaned and cooked. one time my sister told my mom to eff off when she was 5 and I was 8. My mind was blown. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that she had the bravery and courage to defy my mother. Looking back, my sister was just mirroring the language she learned from my parents from whenever they fought. I remembering seriously worrying and getting scared that my father was going to belt her, or use the coat hanger, which was his preference with me. I feel like my mom was always checked out and I'm hurt that she allowed my father to take his rage out on me. That my mom could care less about me being beat, but never my sibling. It was very confusing and difficult for me to process. Not that I really processed it much as a kid. I honestly just wanted to be loved and be the best child possible. Honestly though, 'm seriously so glad that my sister was spared all of that complete non-sense. I don't wish that on anyone in the world. There were some punishments where he would walk in and tell me to pull my pants down without explanation. I have memories of tearing up and saying I didn't know why this was happening, asking what I did wrong and he would just remind me that if I resisted then I would get it worse and to hurry up and get ready. My father has since apologized. I think it is how he was raised. I didn't know what to say in response, but I told him I loved him and it's in the past. But I don't know if I was being honest when I said that. My mother would still gaslight me to this day if any of this became topic of discussion, not that I'm guessing. A year ago she told me that much of my pained memories were false and this never happened. My father on the other hand typically stays pensive and unchallenging.
It seems so damned crazy writing all of this out, it feels like a heartbreaking novel and not my life at all. But it was and is my life. I have difficulties opening up and expressing my feelings and advocating for myself when the moments are true and appropriate to do so. I know it's the healthier way to communicate, but I was literally taught to stay quiet and be useful. Fast forward 20-25 years and I'm going to be 35 and I feel like just ending it all. Every year my birthday passes and I'll get a text from my family happy birthday. But they know I'm in a difficult place, they know I miss them, they know I love them and forgive them, I try the high road whenever I can but I just don't see the point anymore. they won't celebrate my life and existence, but they'll throw family gatherings for each other, birthdays, christmas, fathers day and mothers day.
On that note, another mother's day has recently passed and my mother never invited me over, I texted my father three weeks in advance in hopes of securing a time to come over and celebrate my mothers life with my family as a family. I felt particularly stung this mother's day when they celebrated and didn't text or call to invite me over. I live in the same small town so it's easy to hop over. I literally live three blocks away.
Anyway, my mother was diagnosed with cancer over christmas this year and I have been worrying for my mother ever since and thinking about my life with her and the mortal coil and the finite mount of time I may have with her. I feel like there is a large empty part in my heart that wishes my mother and I could go grab a coffee together. She can show me her ipad app art that she has been really excited about for a couple years now. She loves showing off her digital art and I love seeing her joy and how proud she is about her art. I just don't know why she couldn't feel the same for me, her only son. Maybe I'm just a her dissapointment.
I dropped out of highschool and left the family home when I was 16. I just couldn't work for my dad during the night AND go to highschool AND socialize. Something had to give. Unfortunately it was highschool and my parents didn't really care about that at all. They were just... fine with it. they supported my sister through college and she was fortunately able to graduate with a veterinary degree of sorts. she still lives with them now as she pays off her student debt, but I left and travelled and worked on music for over a decade so I admit that I was entirely out of the family picture for some time. But as I get older, not wanting to repeat the mistakes of my parents I fear that that is precisely what's been creeping up in my life.
five years ago I met the absolute most wonderful human being and I am so lucky to have my partner in my life. She and I are engaged now and set to be married. I hoped that the news would overwhelm my parents with excitement and joy. Maybe a facebook post about their son, share some family pictures or something. But they did nothing at all. I think they showed off pictures of the trip to Mexico that week instead.
I just don't really understand how I'm this unworthy of their love and unfortunately now I'm realizing that illusion that I am unworthy has infected my relationship with my fiance. I love her so much but when I can't fix everything in her life I feel like I am the failure and the guilt overhelms me so much and the guilt is such a strong motivator for me, and it usually motivates me into becoming the biggest doormat in the world. I've never worked harder for a relationship or invested this much energy. I feel she deserves it. But I don't advocate for myself. So I build up resentment. Like I clean the house constantly and work and help bail out of her bad spending habits and cover her rent without question and this and that. To be clear, she doesn't take advantage of me and that's not how I feel about it. But I do let this annoyance build up inside of me because I don't know how to communicate my feelings in a healthy way. I'm scared I'll lose the person if I speak up, or I'll be gaslit. Again, that's not my partner that gaslights. That's just generally how I feel I'll be treated if I open up with people. It all goes back to my childhood. It's affected every friendship and work relationship I've had since.
When I was 20-ish, 15 years years ago I did the classic, "seek the relationship that most comfortably fits into the patterns you experienced with your parents". And so I trapped myself in a horrific and extremely damaging relationship with a girl I'll call K. She has undiagnosed bipolaBPD, she would never seek help but self-medicate. She ended up in the hospital maybe four times for self-harming and this where she was considered to have these diseases by a few doctors on different occasions. Anway, it turned into a relationship of abuse and it wasn't exactly new territory for me. I was ashamed in that 8 year relationship. I wanted out so bad, but she would threaten to unalive everytime I tried to get away. Of course, some weeks would go by and i would get my hair pulled out of my scalp, a knife waving in the air in front of my face, spat in the face, kicked, punched, bit, a pot of freshly boiled ramen soup thrown in my face and eyes. What's worse is that I seeked police intervention on multiple occasions. Every single time the police visited, they talked me out of pressing charges, asking me " well if she doesn't have any place to go, then do you have a place you can stay at, or the shelter?". twice they talked me out of a restraining order, that legal proceedings would take forever. Adn de-escalting me from wanting to take measures to ensure my safety because she may end up on the street as a result. To this day, I absolutely wish I advocated for myself here and pushed for a restraining order. I'm so mad at myself for not doing so.
Unfortunately, fast forward a couple years into that relationship and one evening everything would finally hit the fan. I told her to never touch me again and I absolutely meant it. she had just yanked out the largest chunk of my hair to date, to the point where my scalp was bleeding and I could even see epidermal matter still attached to the folicle ends that were in her clenched fingers. My head bled a bit and I pushed her off of me. Telling her that I needed to leave, that I was walking to my secure jam space just a 10 minute walk away. It had a leather couch in a cold concrete basement, but hey at least I would be safe for the night and I could play my drums and try and blow off this anxiety and fear in a way that was safe albeit very noisy.
She hated that I wanted to leave and convinced herself I would never return. To be fair, that was the energy I had. I never wanted to see her face again and have her name on my lips after that night. So her tactic was simple, to threaten me with calling the cops and tell them that I violently pushed her. I called her bluff and said "go ahead and I will just tell them everything you've done - yet again. All I am doing is going to the space to sleep, I said, maybe play drums." She called the cops and told them she was pushed into a wall, and she felt very unsafe. Which yes, I did push her off me when she attacked me. In the past, I tried various tactics, to run away didn't work, she just always chased me down. Or sometimes I would just sit there while she was violent against me and I just "dissapeared" kind of like how I would when my dad used his coat hanger. This time, I just pushed her off of me, I was done with the relationship at that point and we both knew it. Anyway, she called the police, they arrived and when questioned I told them that I pushed her off of me in self-defence. I was drinking that night and it didn't help my case as I was arrested without question that evening and I was charged on the spot without question with domestic assault. It devasted me. I asked the police how this could happen lawfully. That she is an abuser and there is a history of this multiple times. That I've requested a restraining order. They explained that in quebec the laws are a little different and in the case domestic cases, if there is a male aggressor against a female, then the male is automatically charged to the fullest extent. I was absolutelyu devasted by this. I can't tell you the amount of fear and anger I felt in that jail cell that night.
I feel so incredibly betrayed by the justice system, keep in mind, this is law that from what I understand is only in Quebec, I was there for music at the time with an old friend whom I am no longer in contact with. I don't think the rest of the country operates under law in this way. Now I appreciate that they are vigilant about woman abuse victims, but the law shouldn't be this absurdly biased. It just doesnt feel just and fair to me. Covert abusers shouldn't be able to take advantage of the justice system in this way, but it happens.
It was an awful experience, I was homeless for a couple months afterward, not allowed to retrieve my belongings, so I lost all of my life "crap" that I had built up, years of hardwork and investment. I mention this because I realize later in life that I have intense collecting behaviour. maybe as a self-soothing behaviour. But I love building up collections of my hobby stuff as I have many and I feel they keep me regulated and it's a form of therapy for me. In any case, I lost everything when I left that whole situation. It sucks, although ultimately it's clearly best that I got out of that dreadful circumstance. I flew across the country to my hometown and to be closer to my family and old friends from highschool. It's quite a small town mind you.
Unfortunately, my classic tendency to hide and not advocate for myself created an opportunity for my abusive ex. A year following those events, despite me assuring her that I had to block her because I flew away to start a new life provinces away. That I wished her the best. That I even promised I would never tell a soul what she did to me. Not to mention that unfortunately we live in a society where nobody really has an ounce of sympathy for a male abuse victim. I had every intention to keep that promise, but she couldn't trust me ultimately. I think her logic was maybe to just beat her ex to "the punch". Kill or be killed or something like that. I don't live my life like that so I don't really know what her plan was. But she made a bunch of posts on various social media platforms for all of our mutual friends, music friends, coworkers etc. that the relationship was over and she was free. That she got out of a cycle of abuse and she was ready to start a new chapter of her life. She never used my name, just that she was glad she got away from her toxic and abusive ex once and for all.
It was exactly like that night a year prior, she threatened me with this outcome she could design for me, and I called her on her bluff by saying I was still going to block her and I can't control what she does with her life or how she conducts herself, but that I was out and to never contact me ever again. She made me regret that decision.
The posts she made that day got so many likes and support from so many of our mutual friends, even musician mates that were closer to me than her, and it absolutely destroyed me, not just internally but socially. I no longer make music anymore and it hurts to go outside into the world because it feels like everybody sees me as this monster. And still I don't have a voice to inform anyone otherwise - except my family and my fiance. I have no friends anymore. They all left my life with the belief that I did all of these horrible and awful things.
I just don't trust people anymore as a result and it's just caused me to become extremely bitter and depressed. I ruminate on the past, maybe in attempts to fix the past so I can move on. So I could do better, so I don't have to punish myself for my mistakes in the past. But it just reopens every emotional wound I have and they never get a chance to heal. That was maybe 7 years ago now and I'm still replaying these events in my head every single morning for about 1 - 2 hrs. Then I go completely numb for the majority of the rest of the day, shallow breathing, and the mildest sadness that mascarades as fatigue and disinterest.
There are some days where I seriously fear for the future and I just feel like every cruel soul will inherit this earth and that's the future, they built this world of suffering and they deserve to inherit it. Their toxic flag staked so deep into the earth in reclamation. The future isn't holding any seats for people like us. I'm so heartbroken and defeated. I feel like white-wolfing my fiance because she deserves better than this traumatized person that hides from the world. I feel like giving her my collection of collections so she can sell it all off and pay off her 10k of credit debt, then with this act of kindness I can go out not feeling like a guilt-ridden defeated loser. And leave on a high note.
When I'm alone, I get trapped in these ruminating cycles and it's the angriest I ever get. It's reached the point where I feel like I am actually reliving all this past trauma every morning and I can't do it anymore. I just feel like I am so at the end of whatever this ride was.
I don't have any friends anymore and everyone but my fiance thinks I am a monster and it's just unbearable.
I just don't even know. I am even afraid that someone will read this post and suss through all of this and make the connection. Then I'll get another new email or random throwaway account with an insta message that says "I told you you would never be able to get over me. You can move on, but you will never be able to erase the past. Never truly. You know where to find me."
It's haunting and it's poisonous. I just feel haunted and poisoned and I don't know if there is a snake oil potent enough or antitode true enough to get me back to the generous, lighthearted, energetic kid I once was.
To whoever was willing to read through all of this, thank you for hearing me out. I don't know what advice I am even asking for here. I'm hoping just speaking this out into the world in some way can alleviate this misery. I don't know.

I'm a 38 y/o female.
I was diagnosed with asthma as a kid.
Current meds Soprobec 200 two puffs AM, two puffs PM, ventolin as needed.
I moved into this flat in 2022, was fine before I moved and to begin with, then I developed worsening asthma symptoms as the months went on. I spent ages trying to fathom out the possible cause. I found no sign of mold or anything like that. then found out tobacco smoke from the man downstairs was coming into mine, it's been so bad on a couple of occasions my bathroom has 'fogged up' with smoke. I have tried everything, including having the council works department out to see if we could seal up any gaps etc, nope, no way of stopping it. He seems to vanish for long periods of time, leaving his flat empty. During these periods, my asthma symptoms vanish completely.
In response to my worsening asthma symptoms, in Jan 2024 the asthma nurses at my surgery decided to increase my ICS dose of Beclomethasone from 400mg a day to 800mg a day. Now I have high functioning Autism on top of all this, I am far from dumb or stupid, but anything to do with numbers seems to go over my head a lot of the time, even though I am better at maths now, amounts of things can still flummox me.
NOBODY told me this was considered a moderate to high dose and I should be carrying a steroid warning card, nobody, not once. I wrongly guessed it was only a few mg more than the soprobec 100 I was on. The Soprobec 100 was two puffs am, two puffs pm.
Now, since I have been on the Soprobec 200 at 800mg a day, I have developed some extreme and very disruptive possible side effects.
All possible other causes of these symptoms just got ruled out in a complete bloodwork which included diabetes, hypercalcemia, thyroid and iron deficiency, which are all possible causes of the things I have listed below, all tests have come back requiring no further action.
These are:
EXTREME, unquenchable thirst. I am drinking easily over four liters of water per day. I am also waking up several times a night for a drink, and if I go out I must carry water with me otherwise the thirst is VERY distressing. I feel dehydrated on a 'cellular level', like it doesn't matter how much I drink, I feel thirsty WHILE drinking water!.
Fatigue so bad I can hardly get up out of my chair most days and I am asleep by 9pm, where before I would like to chill with my dog watching a film or something till about 12pm. I have gone from waking literal miles through local fields and woodland with my dog, to barely being able to take her on the local park which is only across the road. I hardly ever go out, and if I do, I suffer immensely as my muscles start aching. I live upstairs and I am struggling getting up the stairs.
It feels as if I have lost all muscle tone all over my body. I no longer feel safe walking my dog as she is med size mastiff cross who is quite strong, she has almost pulled me over at times and I cannot even lift my kitchen bin bag or the laundry basket, I have NEVER had this problem before.
I have lost my appetite and have to force myself to eat every meal, often taking hours rather than minutes.
Episodes of vaginal thrush, something I have NOT had for YEARS, started when I went on this high dose of ICS.
My once 'perfect' periods are now very heavy and irregular.
I feel more angry than before. I had to seriously check my anger levels in my adult years, and developed a much more patient and stoical outlook to life, which brought my stress levels down massively. Since I went on this inhaler I have been snapping at people again, including my own family :(
Tingling hands. This can come on anytime, never had it before the inhaler.
A terrible hoarse voice and it feels like my voice is getting deeper and I am starting to sound 'male' other people have noticed this too.
Profuse sweating on my hands and feet. My hands DRIP with sweat, to the point I hide them from people. Never happened before this inhaler.
Salt and red meat cravings. I am not a big fan of either, and due to heart problems in the family I keep my salt intake low. Other day I just felt compelled to walk into the local coop and buy pork loins and a pack of beef biltong, things I haven't eaten in many moons. I recall saying to myself 'this is SO out of character for you'.
Episodes of nausea, two episodes of vomiting in the morning over two months (not preggers before anyone asks lol) which were not related to anything I had eaten.
Dizzy spells and almost fainting, usually happens if I push myself to do even basic stuff like household chores, which I usually enjoy doing.
I know these are listed as 'rare' side effects, but unusual thirst, tiredness and weakness is mentioned both in the patient info leaflet with the inhaler, and in various other information regarding side effects, such as this article: https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/corticosteroid-inhalation-route/side-effects/drg-20070533?p=1
I take the inhaler via a spacer, my technique is good, I've been doing this whole asthma game all my life, so I am pretty ofay with it all now lol.
I have had a battle over this inhaler with my GP and other asthma services as well. They just do NOT believe ICS can have systemic side effects, in contradiction to what the drug manufacturers say on the leaflet. I think I am going to have to go back to the GP and stand up for myself, which is not something I am good at at all, and present them with this information leaflet, which actually tells you to consult your doctor if you develop any of them!.
Would it be worth asking to try the same dose, as I do not want to risk withdrawal, I have experienced this before from ICS, but on a different steroid with a different inhaler?.
Is there any more bloodwork I could ask for, perhaps adrenal function or cortisol levels?.
I am at a loss, I need to control my asthma, but I also need to be able to live!.
Thank you for taking time to read this, I hope everyone is well and your asthma leaves you alone to enjoy the summer!. :)

Hey y’all! Just got home from Welcome to Rockville 2024… what a crazy, wild, fun, and HOT weekend! I’m gonna just list out some tips for the festival for anyone that plans on going in the future and some tips for concerts/festivals in general!
everyone is different and this is based on my personal experiences at concerts and festivals. Some tips may be super obvious, but if you’re a first timer, it’s good to have a reminder! There is no guarantee all these tips will apply to you/be allowed at every/future festivals. Make sure to check festival/concert venue rules and regulations before you go

1. Keep an eye on the weather! The weather was hotter than I expected a couple days, and cooler other days. Make sure to pack some back up outfits and FL in May… expect anywhere from 70°-95°… with humidity the first day, it felt like over 100°. They also delayed doors one of the days because of possible thunderstorms. Download the WTR app to get alerts right away!
   
2. Lockers are lifesavers! Who wants to carry extra weight all day?! I splurged on a 4 day locker and am so happy I did. Great meet up spot when you’re with friends and get separated, can throw a towel and extra clothes and sunscreen in it and grab what you need when you need it. Wanna go in a pit or crowd surf? Toss everything in your locker. Don’t want to be bringing things in and out of the festival? Leave it in the locker overnight!
   
3. To avoid heat exhaustion and passing out, stay hydrated!! I did not drink any alcohol until sunset each day and drank lots of water during peak heat of the day. They ended up allowing hydro packs because it was so hot. I would bring one along just in case they say you can bring them in. I do not condone drugs but if you insist on taking them, be aware that Rockville had a police dog at gates and please be safe and don’t test your limits at a festival
   
4. More on bags and hydro packs… www.lunchboxpacks.com has clear bags with hydro packs. If they don’t allow the hydro pack, you can remove it. These bags have anti-theft zippers and pockets, and with all the reports of lost phones and other items being literally stolen out of pockets and bags, this bag really helped keep everything secure. For me, this bag passed through security with no issue. Side note, DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK if they haven’t announced letting hydro packs in, you can hid the bag and tube in your clothes, it’s all plastic and won’t set off an alarm.
   
5. List of helpful items to bring:
   

• Sunscreen (for my makeup lovers, I used a 50 SPF CC cream on my face so I could have some coverage and not get burnt or have a greasy face)
• Sanitizer
• Lip balm with SPF
• Wet wipes
• Tissues (literally will be breathing in dirt/sand and will get congested… blow occasionally)
• Sunglasses
• Bandaids (I had so many blisters from wearing Docs lol)
• Ear plugs
• Power bank/charging cables (lunchbox packs has a great power bank)
• Towel/light blanket (use to sit on the ground if you don’t wanna stand in the crowd or seating in tents is full)
• Extra shirt/bottoms (best to keep in locker. Some stages had a dude with a firehose spraying the crowd and I got drenched. Also one night it got cold and I was able to put a tee on over my bikini and I almost had a bodysuit malfunction another day so having shorts to put on helped)

1. Dress “code”: wear whatever you want (ladies, nips have to be covered!). I saw people covered head to toe, in comfy clothes, costumes, and people wearing pasties and thongs. Anything goes! They are strict on spikes… do NOT wear anything with spikes. They allowed small chain necklaces, but no thick chains… however, day 1, walking to the entrance of the security line I had thick chain necklaces on and the security guard at the entrance told me to hide them in my bag… I got them through that way and then put them on. It seems like once you get through security, they don’t care unless some issue arises from something you’re wearing/brought in.
   
2. Crowd safety! Careful in the pits! Remember the number one rule… if someone falls… PICK THEM UP. We are a family so let’s help each other stay safe. If you see someone acting up, tell security. If someone is stealing, tell security. If someone is about to/is passing out, get a medic. If you are near a pit and not in it, keep an eye on it so you don’t get knocked over. If someone comes at you, don’t freak out and shy away, just push them back in. If the pit is behind you, my best defense (I am a pretty small female so be careful with this one if you’re bigger) has been shoving my elbows back behind me to keep people from knocking me forward. Make sure you look back occasionally/pay attention to people around you because there will be an insane amount of crowd surfing… someone even went up in a wheelchair during Slipknot and ADTR told people to crowd surf on top of a crowd surfer… it got crazy and dangerous so STAY ALERT
   
3. Finding your way around… you will have slim to no reception. Keep an eye on landmarks… stages, sound booths, entrances, rides, lights, tents, food trucks, etc. this will help you navigate and set up meeting spots for when you’re with friends. Keep screenshots of the set times and circle what bands you are going to. Set your lock screen to a screenshot of a note with info if your phone is lost or stolen (number of friend/family to call if someone picks up your phone or police catch a thief, your name, etc.) and change home screen to a map of festival.
   
4. Food and drinks: look at all the food options before you pay… some booths give you a kiddie portion for $20+ and some give you more than a full size meal for $15. Try to eat proteins AND carbs since you will be walking a LOT. Protein is going to help with your muscles, while something with carbs will fill you up more so you don’t have to eat as much/often! The drinks are also pricey. The Heavy Tiki booth was definitely the best deal, frozen cocktails in a huge cup with a shot of dark rum on top… $22! Small mixed drinks were about $18.
   

Well if I think of anything else, I’ll add it to the comments or edit post! Rock on y’all!

Hi everyone. The last few months have been an emotional rollercoaster and I feel like everything is catching up to me now. During February-April, I was interviewing for my 3rd time at 8 schools to get into grad school. In February, my grandma (someone who lived with our family and helped raise me) went into home hospice care and ending up passing away shortly after. I decided to take off work and live at home during this short time as I also had a few interviews during those same weeks. Without much time to process this loss by myself, I continued my interviews and found out I got into one of the schools that’s in another major city. A week after I found out this news and started the process of planning my move in a few months, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Luckily the prognosis is very good as it was caught early, but I feel like it all has emotionally caught up with me in past few weeks. I’m so worried about money, my family’s well-being, and still trying to keep up with the 2 jobs I’m working. I feel like I just cant stop these waves of nausea, episodes of vertigo, and feeling like i’m losing my mind or am going to die (my panic attacks often manifest like this). All of my friends live in the city I got into a school at, so I’ve been feeling very alone with my thoughts and not feeling sure of how to even discuss how terribly I’m doing mentally without making my friends and family worry (this makes my anxiety worse because I don’t want to feel like the cause of other peoples’ worry). I’m so tired all the time, I can’t sleep well because my brain keeps worrying about everything, and I am having a hard time eating (I just weighed myself and found out I lost almost 30 lbs the past 3 months). I feel so much shame around feeling like I can’t emotionally handle anything at 25 years old and I feel like I’m doing such a poor job at keeping up with all my responsibilities. I feel like I’m emotionally regressing back to the time my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in high school and, although he is still with us and healthy, I’m just so overwhelmed by everything. Luckily I have medication that works well for me and I have a therapist, but I still can’t help but feel like I’m doing such a bad job at practicing mindfulness and reminding myself what is within my control.
Anything that will validate how I’m feeling and/or support me in anyway is deeply appreciated! Thank you

Hi moms. I've used Bio-oil on my belly during pregnancy but forgot about the busts. And now my busts have lots of stretch marks after giving birth. I stopped using Bio-oil cuz I realized it has vitamin A on it. Any safe products to treat the stretch marks on busts while breastfeeding? I've just started my breastfeed journey for a few weeks and there'll be a long time to go. Thank you !!

Hey! I have been spending a lot of time in this subreddit reading other people’s experiences to comfort myself through my own abortion process, and I wanted to share my story for any other uterus-havers out there that were in the same boat as me and need a little reassurance and honesty about the process. For reference, I’m 19F and 5’4/115lbs, and I’ve been with my partner (20M) for almost three years.
I took a pregnancy test on the 40th day of my cycle (so I was five weeks four days along, my period was a week and a half late) and got a very quick positive result. I had a suspicion that I was pregnant because I had some weird spotting in the middle of my cycle and the week my period was supposed to start (no clotting), odd cramps, random nausea from strong smells, needing to pee way more than usual, random sadness and aggression from ovulation onward, extreme breast swelling and sensitivity (they were agonizing to even touch) and an ever so slight bloat that appeared right around ovulation and never really went down. I live in a southern state and knew that going in for procedure was going to be a goat rope despite the fact that I live in a decently sized city- I knew that if I was pregnant I wanted to have the medical abortion at home with my partner.
I ordered pills from AidAccess and it couldn’t have been any simpler, all I had to do was fill out a short survey and they guided me through email on how to pay for the pills. They were delivered about three days after I ordered them in an unmarked mail envelope with directions on how to use them inside. I ordered them a few days before I took the test because I was pretty confident it was going to be positive. They sent me 1 Mifepristone and 12 Misoprostol.
I took the test on a Friday night and told my partner I was pregnant, and he insisted I take another test just to be sure before I took the medication. Once again, another strong positive. At 9pm that night I took 800mg of Motrin (4 pills) and ate a bag of microwave popcorn and drank some water so I’d have something on my stomach. At 9:30 I took the Mifepristone orally and immediately inserted 4 Misoprostol vaginally- I’m terrified of throwing up and told my partner that if we had to get medical help to make sure there weren’t any remnants of the pills left inside. I know it’s NOT OPTIMAL to take the Miso at the same time as the Mife, but it was Easter weekend and I couldn’t be prolonging this process to when I would be going back to my extremely Christian and conservative parents’ house for the holiday.
I was extremely terrified and shaking when I got back into bed with my partner, and he rubbed my stomach to calm me down and put on a movie as a distraction. After about an hour I felt some light cramping and discomfort but nothing serious. At 12:30am, I inserted the next 4 pills vaginally- there was no bleeding at this point and I was worried, but I decided to give it time. My partner and I fell asleep around 1am and I woke up at about 3:15am to some discomfort but no real pain, and at 3:30am I inserted the last 4 pills and had bloody fingers after. I slept until about 10am the next morning and woke up feeling normal and not in any pain. I went to the bathroom to pee, and as soon as I sat down I had about a solid thirty seconds of chunks, clotting, and blood pouring out. I called my partner in and we ultimately determined that I had probably passed the pregnancy with the size of the chunks in the toilet.
Saturday and Easter Sunday were fairly normal, I stayed taking Motrin and bleeding ever so slightly throughout the weekend. The worst part was the hormonal comedown, I felt like I had been hit by a bus emotionally and didn’t really compute actual feelings. Monday morning I got up and went into work feeling pretty normal, and at about 9:30am I got hit with the worst abdominal pain I have ever felt in my life (I’m prescribed opioids for my cramps as a result of how many times I’ve been hospitalized from sheer pain, so this was a big deal) and clung to the toilet bowl for about 45 minutes at my research firm before just calling it a day and going home. I took 800mg of Motrin and it took about two hours to kick- those were probably the worst two hours of my life up to that point. Nothing would shake the pain, I was taking hot baths and putting microwaved bags of rice on my stomach and nothing was alleviating it. I also started bleeding heavily and clotting severely again. By about 2:30pm that afternoon I was feeling okay enough to get myself some food and felt like I would be able to go into work the next day.
I was so wrong. I was so entirely wrong. I woke up at about 8:00am the next morning and immediately vomited from the antagonizing pain I was in. This was the first time I actually threw up during the whole experience- thankfully my partner was there to hold my hair back and try to make me eat toaster waffles so I could take some more Motrin before he went to work. I was somehow able to choke it down and fell asleep shortly after as I did NOT want to be awake. Wednesday was a little crampy and bloody but I went to work and took breaks sitting on the cold bathroom floor for about 15-20 minutes at a time through the day- but by Thursday we were smooth sailing.
The uterine swelling, needing to pee, and breast tenderness went away after about a week and a half, and the bleeding stopped after about two weeks. I took two more pregnancy tests exactly four weeks from that Friday and they were both negative, and my first period was exactly six weeks after the abortion- it started this Friday. Emotionally, I’m still recovering- Mother’s Day kinda sucked for me I won’t lie, haha. I definitely couldn’t handle a baby right now as I’m a research scientist and my career is on the incline, but it’s fun to dream.
I’ll put any resources I used in the comments as this post is getting very long, and I’ll try to answer whatever questions anyone has to the best of my ability. The buildup was definitely scarier than the actual thing, as it was just like having a heavy period drawn out- and if you’re pregnant, you’ve probably had a period before, so just look at it as something you already experience once every 4 weeks, just ever so slightly amped up. Nothing new. You got this!

-do-
So, I have had two Female crushes in my college days. But since I wasn't allowed to date or get engage into sex with women, I never really tried to take things to the next level with my crushes (yes, they were good friends of mine so I knew them very closely). My first crush was genuinely my first ever "love at first sight" and I kinda hoped to be with her but I couldn't. And because of this failed "situation" I never really tried to date anyone since then. I'm Indian so yk the society is a bit too conservative about this. And yes, my parents know that I have "same sex attraction".
Fast forward to 2024, I've been diagnosed with at least 5-6 routine psychiatric symptoms and I'm taking medications for them for the last 3 months. I am doing well for myself now and tbh, I have a new perspective towards life and I've genuinely improved myself a lot. I talk more openly with my therapist, parents, sibling and friends. I aspire to move to Australia for my speciality training and settle there, so, dating would be my priority as well.
I have noticed that I now take more interest in women than I used to. Ofcourse, it's hard for me to approach women for a non-platonic relationship (when it comes to platonic friendship, I'm great with women coz they feel safe around me).
I came out to my homies in February 2024 and it went well for me and they've not only accepted me but they have encouraged me A LOT during my mental health recovery. I'm not ashamed of my sexuality one bit. And I am planning to my potential partner about my sexuality on the day one. I don't want secrets between us. My sexuality does explain some of my behaviours so I think it will be very crucial if they know and can help me through it.
Que:- Since I have never dated a woman before, I dunno how to go about it. I'm turning 25 tomorrow and I don't want to remaining single anymore. Let me know your POV.

I want to start by saying I really appreciate this medicine for what it did for me. I was desperate for help at a time where life felt difficult to cope with and Pristiq absolutely helped. I got through some major life challenges with an open mind and for that I’m really grateful.
I started weaning off a month ago, dropping from 75mg to 50mg for two weeks, 50mg to 25mg for two weeks and today I am scheduled to stop taking it completely.
My taper plan feels aggressive compared to what I’ve seen, but I trust my psychiatrist so I’ve followed it.
75 to 50: I felt heightened anxiety, a bit of nausea, some lightheadedness. I noticed I wasn’t flushing or feeling hot as much as I was used to, this was one of the most annoying side effects for me with Pristiq. I always ran so warm.
50 to 25: I had the same symptoms and also started to become aware of my feelings much more. Simple things made me want to weep, from sad to happy things. My bf suggested we go cosmic bowling one night and I got emotional 😹 it wasn’t all “cute” though. The second week was pretty miserable. Work stress was putting me in an existential crisis. Things felt harder to deal with, I wanted to isolate more, I was irritable and felt kind of out of my mind.
The last two days I’ve felt more stable.
25 to 0: I can’t say much because it’s my first day but I can say that I have felt pretty good today and I haven’t had a soul crushing headache the way I would previously if I ever missed a dose or was late. At this point, I’ve also noticed that my metabolism feels better. I’ve lost some stubborn weight that I haven’t been able to lose since being on Pristiq.
Some things I’ve done to self-regulate during my taper: Lift weights 3-4x a week Eat as healthy as I can, not avoiding treats that make me happy Lotssss of water and electrolytes Less coffee Be more intentional with my sleep
I’ve been pretty lucky, I don’t wish to jinx it and I’ll definitely report after a month off of it. I’m grateful this little online pocket exists, it’s made me feel less alone in the journey and like there are people who can relate. 🫶🏻
My mom said it really wonderfully today “The same symptoms you might experience coming off are the same symptoms that made you seek medication, it’s all about being smart starting medication, being smart on medication, and being smart getting off medication. Every step has its value, and they all bring you closer to yourself.” I just really loved that.

I have a 1 year old cavapoo. He’s neutered and he has no prior health issues. He’s about 11 pounds and the only medication he takes is Simparica Trio. He’s the happiest, sweetest boy ever. He loves to eat and he loves to run around and play. Now on to the issue.
Around 24 hours ago, my dog woke up in the middle of the night and threw up. I didn’t think much of it because sometimes it just happens. He had been normal all day and eating as usual. I cleaned it up and we went back to bed. He ended up jumping off my bed at some point in the night and had diarrhea EVERYWHERE. I woke up to it in the morning.
He was not himself at all. He looked so sad and just mopey all day long. He loves to eat everything and refused everything under the sun, including cooked human food (chicken). I got him to drink some water here and there.
Throughout the day he threw up at least 10 times. Just straight liquid. He only had one bout of diarrhea which was the one in the house in the middle of the night. I finally made the call to rush to the emergency vet when i noticed specks of blood in his last round of throw up.
We get there and they basically told me that he sounded good, vitals were good, no fever, no abdominal swelling or pain when touched, and his gums weren’t pale so he wasn’t that dehydrated. Overall his physical exam was fine. They gave him an injection of anti-nausea stuff and some fluids just to be on the safe side.
The vet stated she was okay sending him home. It’s been around 8 hours since the vet visit and i’m still worried sick about him. He drank a little bit of water, still won’t eat, still laying around, but he has peed and had one more bout of diarrhea two hours after we got home from the vet. His last vomiting episode was probably 9 hours ago.
Maybe i’m overreacting and I just need to let whatever upset his stomach run its course but i’m just so worried. I don’t know what would’ve made him sick as he didn’t get anything new nor has he gotten into anything (that i am aware of). He is up to date on all vaccines and he doesn’t really go anywhere and hasn’t been in contact with other dogs.
When do I make the call to bring him back in? If this is just a case of gastroenteritis, when would you expect to see improvement?