Hi there so I have a friend that recently graduated college, he lives in his car cuz he was trying to pay off his student loans by working place had some health issues and he's had an issue actually pulling in a profit every month. Essentially at this point he's barely keeping even.
His car failed smog and he tried to get to pass but he couldn't he started getting a bunch of tickets for expired registration, he tried to explain the situation to the private companies that we now have overseeing tickets and they rejected his appeals.
Due to health issues he unfortunately missed the second deadline for appeals.
He called and attempted to explain himself multiple times and they said he could have his car dismantled and they would be able to write off the tickets short of that they can't lower the amount of the fines. Each ticket kept on going up and not because he couldn't pay and now the tickets are about to turn into a $350 each.
What does he do? He spoke to a free attorney when they told him that you should have the right to talk to a judge due to his circumstances they should be able to waive the deadlines.
When he spoke to the agency running these tickets they said nope, because your deadline for a second appeal expired you do not have the right to talk to a judge anymore.
Apparently the judges are really the only ones that have the kind of power to do things like drop the price of a ticket down to something that's actually reasonable for somebody who doesn't have any money to pay.
These tickets happened in california, particularly Southern California Thanks

I’ve worked in restaurant management for about 20 years (15.5 years with the same company). 2 months ago I sold all of my company stocks ($62k)and went down to part time hourly employee(3days a week).
I paid off most of my debts, caught up on bills and have been enjoying spending 3-4 days a week being with my kids. My quality of life has improved drastically and I can’t imagine going back to working in restaurants full time again. The money I make part time isn’t enough to sustain me, I am basically just working for health insurance at this point.
I want to change industries but the job market is trash right now.
I have about $16k left and I know it won’t last forever. I’m at a cross roads on what to do from here . I am really thinking about starting a cnc business, I did the math and to get a cnc machine and a shed and all of the tools I need, electrical set up in the shed would cost me around $12k. That would leave me with a few thousand dollars for any material and living expenses for a very short time.
Is it realistic to think I could start a cnc business from scratch and start making a living from it?
Worst case scenario is I go back to working full time either at my current job or get a new one. I figure it’s worth the shot of taking advantage of the free time I have now before having to go back to full time.

Hi there so I have a friend that recently graduated UC davis, he lives in his car cuz he was trying to pay off his student loans by working place had some health issues and he's had an issue actually pulling in a profit every month. Essentially at this point he's barely keeping even.
His car failed smog and he tried to get to pass but he couldn't he started getting a bunch of tickets for expired registration, he tried to explain the situation to the private companies that we now have overseeing tickets and they rejected his appeals.
Due to health issues he unfortunately missed the second deadline for appeals.
He called and attempted to explain himself multiple times and they said he could have his car dismantled and they would be able to write off the tickets short of that they can't lower the amount of the fines. Each ticket kept on going up and not because he couldn't pay and now the tickets are about to turn into a $350 each.
What does he do? Does anybody have a father that's a lawyer or anything? He spoke to a free attorney when they told him that you should have the right to talk to a judge due to his circumstances they should be able to waive the deadlines.
When he spoke to the agency running these tickets they said nope, because your deadline for a second appeal expired you do not have the right to talk to a judge anymore.
Apparently the judges are really the only ones that have the kind of power to do things like drop the price of a ticket down to something that's actually reasonable for somebody who doesn't have any money to pay.
Thanks

I was driving and noticed my car was starting to break down, unsure why I continued to my destination for a short while and then pulled over and shut the car off. As I was driving it would not accelerate anymore and the engine sounded terrible. I didn't know what the issue was so I turned the engine back on and noticed the temp gauge was all the way at H. I turned it off again and find there is coolant everywhere under my car. I look inside the coolant reservoir and see there is zero coolant. I fill the coolant with water and try to turn it on again but the engine fails to start. After waiting 15 minutes I tried it again and it started but it rapidly leaks. Managed to get it home using a full container of coolant refilling it when it started to get hot again. How likely is it that my car is damaged internally, and is it rational to get rid of it. It has 120k miles. It has a good paintjob and rare trim. I think I can get good money for it. What do I do?

Because of a very fractured attempt at migrating our stuff, most of our customers were unable to access their shit which has made everyday at work feel like it was Wednesday.
What angered me the most was: 1) the team responsible for this migration was told to enable logging during testing and did not do so. We are now left with our dicks out because we rolled out to production and are reactively figuring out how to address this issue. 2) I told my team to clarify some essential things that were core to this migration and I never got a fucking straight answer which ended up becoming a factor in the bullshit we are going through.
I am drowning in customers who are getting frustrated, we don’t have reliable and easy to follow instructions because we made changes to production 15 minutes after we migrated to it, and the team who made the dumbass changes are taking no responsibility and people want an answer.
I can’t fucking sleep and coming to work everyday felt like Wednesday because I know our customers are wasting their valuable time on this fucking bullshit, and my team dropped the ball on certain things, but they are kind of doing this because the other dumbass teams are not taking responsibility for their fuck ups. Pretty much, it seems our customers are suffering because of politics.
I wish I was more technical. I wish I was more eloquent. I also put a lot of this on myself.
What could I have done better based on my vague rambling?
Thanks guys!

I’ve worked in restaurant management for about 20 years (15.5 years with the same company). 2 months ago I sold all of my company stocks ($62k)and went down to part time hourly employee(3days a week).
I paid off most of my debts, caught up on bills and have been enjoying spending 3-4 days a week being with my kids. My quality of life has improved drastically and I can’t imagine going back to working in restaurants full time again. The money I make part time isn’t enough to sustain me, I am basically just working for health insurance at this point.
I want to change industries but the job market is trash right now.
I have about $16k left and I know it won’t last forever. I’m at a cross roads on what to do from here . I am really thinking about starting a cnc business, I did the math and to get a cnc machine and a shed and all of the tools I need, electrical set up in the shed would cost me around $12k. That would leave me with a few thousand dollars for any material and living expenses for a very short time.
Is it realistic to think I could start a cnc business from scratch and start making a living from it?
Worst case scenario is I go back to working full time either at my current job or get a new one. I figure it’s worth the shot of taking advantage of the free time I have now before having to go back to full time.

I (24 M) have a MTG (Magic the Gathering) hobby that I usually will hang out with my friends and my dad every Monday or whenever we’re all free on a Monday. If my (24 F) wife works on Monday I’ll go and if she’s off I’ll cancel and be with her. Me going when she’s working is an issue for her. I’ll leave our place around 3 or 4 pm and come back around 9 to 9:30 pm the latest. I don’t know if that’s unreasonable to others but to her it is. She’ll get mad and say I choose a card game over her which isn’t the case at all. It’s my one time a week and not even every week, to have laughs, and quality time with my friends and dad as well. No matter how many times I say that to her it’s the same response, “you choose a stupid card game over me. That’s not a real hobby. You left me here all alone.” Mind you, she gets off around 8pm on Mondays. I tell her I don’t shame her for being with her friends for any amount of time or whatever she does in her free time. But when it comes to this, it seems like she just doesn’t like what I’m into? She’s known I’ve been in this hobby for years and I like hanging out with my friends and dad at the same time. How should I respond to her saying these things? Do I give up my hobby to just get some peace of mind from this happening almost every Monday?
TL;DR- My (24 M) Wife (24 F) Doesn’t like when I have my day for hobbies while she’s at work.

I really like her; we get along very well, the relationship is exactly how I always wanted it—light, fun, we think the same way about everything, and the sex is good. We talk for hours on end as if we had just met. She is caring and affectionate, and gets along well with my family and all my friends love her.
I am successful, have my own money which I worked hard to earn, and a very solid career achieved with a lot of hard work, sometimes working two jobs simultaneously since I was 17.
However, her lack of perspective for the future bothers me. She has quit two jobs for trivial reasons, and from the last one, she quit to focus on her final semester of college. However, college only takes up 16 hours of her week, and in her free time, she sleeps, watches series, or browses trivialities on Instagram. She doesn't read books related to her profession, doesn't participate in events, seminars, specializations, nothing.
I've broken up with her twice for this same reason, but we ended up getting back together. She's shown improvements ever since, but not enough to give me confidence in her future. The latest disappointment was last month when she applied for two job selections but hasn't studied even a day for the tests and failed.
I know we are at different stages, but at her age, I was already professionally on track. My problem isn't that she doesn't have a career yet, but that she does nothing in the direction of achieving one.
I'm afraid she will continue like this, doing the bare minimum, and overwhelm me. My previous marriage ended for this reason, so it's a serious issue for me. But since the other aspects of the relationship are very good, I fear losing a good person, and since she's young I could hope for some change.
What should I do?
Thank you very much!
TLDR: I'm considering ending my relationship with my girlfriend, who is caring and well-liked by my friends and family, due to her repeated pattern of quitting jobs for minor reasons and showing little ambition. Although breaking up with her previously led to temporary improvements, she has reverted to her old habits.

I'm 28yo today. I was heavily bullied all throughout middle and high school by a guy in my class, Kevin. I skipped 3 grades and he was held back once so I was 9yo when he was 13 and so on until I graduated high school at 15 and him at 19. Kevin's bullying included a lot of insults, casual displays of disrespect for me all day everyday, he would spit on me when no teacher was looking, and when he found me alone, especially when walking home after school, it became physical. He knocked out a tooth once, broke my wrist once, and I still have scars from him on my arm and my cheek. At the time, my family life was abysmal too (absent and neglectful workaholic father, physically and emotionally abusive SAH mother, very poor relationship with my brother who was 12 years older than me and hating me for coming into his life when he'd been a single child for 12 years...) and I tried to off myself. Multiple times. Again, still got those scars on my wrists.
I got better after high school, especially when I found peers in college who respected me and included me in things. And Kevin was too dumb to ever make it into college so I was safe for the first time ever. I moved into student housing when I came out as gay and my parents kicked me out, so I became surrounded by decent human beings in an environment where being a school-obsessed nerd is rewarded and not shamed. I found a purpose in life, then met the man who's now my husband of 4 years, we are happy and the dark times are behind me.
Earlier today, Kevin contacted me on Facebook out of the blue. He said basically that he's been in therapy for his issues and his therapist made him realize how much he made me suffer and he wanted to apologize. I said okay, apology acknowledged and rejected. He started sending off tons of quick short messages in DMs, asking me why, saying he's genuinely sorry, etc at first, but after I explained how deeply his bullying hurt me (basically what I say in the first paragraph), the tone turned immediately to accusations and anger. Telling me that it's not his fault that both my parents are fuckups and that I have mommy issues and that it's unfair to him to let him feel bad for something that happened years ago and that I need to forgive him because his therapist said that a fault admitted is a fault forgiven. I told him that if he were really genuine, he'd accept that his bullying is unforgivable, he'd say okay and goodbye and part ways forever. He said in response to that that it'd be cruel to him to leave him without closure, I asked "as cruel as what you did to me?" to which he said "fuck you" and he blocked me.
I did not really feel bad about it, but talking to my husband, who was with his friends at the time and who heard it all, they all kinda agreed that I was unnecessarily cruel to him. Their points, basically: Kevin apologized when nothing forced him to; he seemed to feel genuine guilt even though he expressed it through anger, and my husband & friends argued that he clearly has issues with emotional regulation and his instinctive/uncontrollable reaction to being rejected being anger tracks, and that I caused his anger because it started after I told him "apology rejected"; it's been 13 years, people change in 13 years; that I didn't really have a reason to reject his apology since I am happy now and it'd cost me nothing, basically the friends argued that I was being petty and seeking to make Kevin feel pain as retaliation which they argued is immoral (my husband was with me on this); that hurt people hurt people and I am educated and mature enough to be able to be the bigger man in this situation, because Kevin does not have the education and experience with mental health that I do. I might be forgetting a bit I am sorry.
Point is, who do you think is more right? AITAH?

my tuition fee is completely free, every single thing in my closet is a gift from a relative, my makeup costs less than $2 which i get from my $8 weekly allowance (i'm not even sure if it's safe), i have not gotten medical help from my mental issues, and we almost never go out to eat or go on a vacation every year.
my mom barely pays for anything besides the bare minimum and has also never been emotionally available. she treats us like shit and yells at us every single day as if she's paying for everything.
god i hope to get out of here before i lose it and decide to just make it stop myself.

Hello everyone, as I announced in a recent post, I'll tell you about my experience of playing a chess tournament while I was fasting.
Last Sunday I finished a 7-round (4 days) over-the-board chess tournament (long time control: 90 mins per player per game + 15 mins after 40 moves + 30 s increment for each move from the beginning) and an 8-days water fast. So, the tournament took place on days 5-8 of the water fast.
During the fast I supplemented electrolytes, added magnesium glycinate (helped with hunger and cravings), b-vitamins and vitamin d + vitamin k2. I drank approximately 2.5-3 liters of water each day and one cup of black coffee on two of the days each.
In the tournament I scored 5/7 with four wins, two draws and one loss. This was an okay result considering my playing strength and the strength of my opponents. It was just slightly below the expectation, but in a totally normal range.
Probably more important is the course of the games and how I felt while playing. The fasting didn't show any direct adverse effects (except for the usual watery stool), so I did not feel distracted by the fast. I felt rather relaxed most of the time and had no issues with pressure or concentration. I felt slightly tired, but that could have been caused by a lack of sleep (caused by a baby).
I sometimes had the impression that my thinking was a bit slower than usual and slightly less focused. But that was not worse than what's possible while eating. Also, it seemed like my memory of my opening preparation was slightly worse than normal. Still nothing out of the ordinary.
So, as a result I'd say that fasting did neither have a strong negative nor a strong positive impact on my chess performance. This came to me as a surprise because I thought it would change at least something significantly. For me this is a positive outcome as it shows that I can perform well in demanding cognitive tasks during fasts. I'll probably try this again in a few months.
I am a male in my mid-30s, BMI ~30, 5'10", 210 lbs. Lost about 7 lbs during the fast.
n=1

I, 18M, weight a little over 220 pounds and I’ve just been gaining more and more weight when I eat maybe 1,000-1,500 calories a day depending. I go to school 7am-2:25 where I take a 20 minute walk to work retail 3-10:00pm. I am moving or just standing 99.99% of that time I work retail front end. I naturally pace back and forth while standing so I move even more doing that. I have no time to do legitimate exercise as I am awake 15 hours a day and still need to do homework after that then also sleep for 6/7 hours on a good night.
I try to eat 3 times a day and I do it all in the afternoon because of work and stomach issues. I eat around 11am for a school lunch which is like 300 calories, I eat again at 7pm for my 30 minute lunch break at work which varies if I bring something or not so between 100-300 calories as well, then I come home at around 10:15pm and eat again for when I do homework and such for another 100-300 calories.
I don’t eat a lot, I love a lot, I don’t understand why I’m still gaining so much weight.

Are after images a symptom of migraine?
For years iv always had after images, where quite often il look away and still see a negative image of what I was looking at previously.
Not sure of this is completely unrelated due to other health issues so thought I'd ask here :)
hope you're all migraine free!

November 29, 2023: quite literally the first sign that something might be wrong. My mom (65) had somewhat severe/persistent abdominal pain in her liver area for 2 days so decided to contact her primary care physician.
December 21, 2023: diagnosed with stage IV PC (mets to the liver). I cannot emphasize how out of the blue this diagnosis was. I know that many, many people on this feed understand this though.
January 11: 1st hospital admission due to bowel obstruction.
January 15: discharged from hospital after being under the impression GI doc was able to dislodge obstruction without surgery.
January 21: 2nd hospital admission. Bowel obstruction has returned. Cancer has spread all over the outside of her large colon (aka peritoneal disease). Ostomy surgery is done to avoid continued bowel obstructions.
January 28: discharged from hospital. Returns home, hopeful she can finally begin chemo.
February 4: suffers several “mini strokes” from (this is literally how the medical team described it to us) small pieces of the cancer breaking off and causing the strokes. Loses function in her right hand almost entirely, severely diminished use of her right leg.
February 5: 3rd hospital admission. Transferred to in patient rehabilitation to work on regaining leg and arm strength/functionality.
February 16: discharged from hospital. Can walk with a cane, right hand still severely disabled.
February 21: round 1 of chemo. Gets a 75% dosage. Nausea has been a huge issue since date of diagnosis. She hates it.
March 6: round 2 of chemo. Doesn’t go well. Nonstop throwing up. Feels awful. Decides she is no longer willing to do treatment.
March 19: CT scan to see effectiveness of chemo so far. Zero progress/cancer has continued to spread. Solidifies her decision to abandon treatment.
April 3: 4th hospital admission, declining rapidly. Decides to go on hospice.
April 5: discharged, returns home.
April 25: four months and four days following her diagnosis, my mom takes her last breath.
The days between April 5 and April 25 are a blur. The rate at which she declined is still impossible for my brain to comprehend. I am hoping that in writing out a timeline maybe I can grasp more of this as the reality it is. She was kicked down and dealt bad card after bad card immediately following her diagnosis. From my understanding, both the bowel blockages and strokes are fairly rare alongside an already ruthless cancer. The pain of watching the person I love most in this world get beat down was and continues to be indescribable.
She was the epitome of health prior to this diagnosis. Our last time together before her diagnosis was at a Broncos game on November 26, she was completely normal and happy and healthy and we had the best time. I can’t stop thinking about it. The fact that she would be dead 5 months after that day is just.. there are no words.
Pancreatic cancer follows no rules. The ability of this cancer to keep symptoms dormant until it is often times much too late is so disturbing. To anyone newly on this journey, fighting it out in the middle, newly grieving like me, or years past still grieving… my heart breaks for you. And it breaks for me.
I will miss her every single second of every single day for the rest of my life.
God speed everyone 🙏🏼

We have identified an issue where a small amount of users that signed up for 5 Nodes Free licenses between May and June 2023 were accidentally issued duplicate license keys, one of which may expire sooner than intended.
If you are affected by this issue - ie, you signed up for a 5 Nodes Free license between May and June 2023 and your current license is expiring or close to expiry - please get in contact with us by emailing us at success@portainer.io from the email address the license is attached to. Our team will then reply with the correct license key to use and instructions on how to swap the new license key in.
Thank you for your patience with this issue and we're sorry for any confusion the duplicate licenses may have caused.

The most recent email:

Thanks for contacting Coinbase Support regarding your concern with being blocked in your Coinbase account. We completely understand the importance of addressing this issue. We know this may not be the experience you were hoping for and please know your issue is a priority for us. We would like to provide clarity.
We understand that you had a previous account with Coinbase that is now closed, and your account’s funds have been reported and delivered to the State of Wyoming as unclaimed property.
The reason your account was sent to the State of Wyoming is because you established your account with Coinbase Kenya Ascending Markets, Ltd., which shut down. Coinbase made multiple attempts to contact you at your verified email address to inform you of the closure, requesting that you transfer your account to an external wallet. Unfortunately, we did not receive a response from you, and as a result, your account was transferred to our affiliate, Crypto Services, Inc. The crypto assets in your account were liquidated, and the resulting funds, in US Dollars, were reported and delivered to the State of Wyoming.
To reclaim your property, you will need to contact Wyoming's Unclaimed Property Division directly by following the steps outlined in our Help Center: https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/managing-my-account/otheescheatment-and-unclaimed-funds
For any inquiries or concerns, it's recommended you contact the Wyoming Unclaimed Property Division directly, as Coinbase cannot provide further support regarding the funds.
We regret to lose you as a customer, and we understand that this situation may be disappointing. At the moment, we may not be able to offer any services related to your closed account, however, we’re constantly working towards expanding our offerings and improving our services. We hope to have the opportunity to serve you again in the future. If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to us. Have a good one!

Kind Regards,

Coinbase Suppport

Screwed up things in Coinbase:

1. Coinbase is still not addressing the "WHY" about my account be closed.
2. I contacted them the moment I receive account suspension notice. (Plenty of time to handle my case and stop the suspension process)
3. Verification is F-ed up, it cannot get passed. I keep contacting Coinbase why this happen but since it is before suspension actually happen, they take it slow.
4. Now my account is suspended, then they start to follow up closely. (and so "we may not be able to offer any services related to your closed account")
5. I completed my verification months ago and I got the email that my verification is done, it is completed.
6. After the verification, I can use Coinbase freely, and there is no further notification I need to verify anything else. VERIFICATION IS DONNNNNE!!!
7. "We understand that you had a previous account with Coinbase that is now closed", I understand that Coinbase had slowly respond to my case until my account is closed!
8. Final word, DO NOT BE Coinbase customer if you don't want to be like me. DO NOT BE Coinbase customer if you don't want your crypto assets in your account being liquidated.

Case# is 19072219 BTW, but I guess you guys doesn't give a F.

Been planting for well over a decade and running crews for a while. Lately been started to get frustrated with our work culture in BC treeplanting. Was curious if anybody also had concerns over the work culture developed within this industry or at least critical of its intensity.
It's piece work sure but the intensity required is starting to become a major issue for me. I work 14-16 hours/day all the time. 70-80/week. Im sure most of us do. Planters routinely work themselves into major injury or burnout. WIth little to. no compensation, beyond a paycheque. Sure its only for 3-6 months of year but maybe theres also a structural problem with the seaonality piece. Idk. Disposable workforce.
I know many crewbosses who have had a both physical and mental breakdowns from stress/exhaustion. Accidents and injuries are way to common just to due to workculture. Planters get grumpy and angry if they have 15 minutes of downtime. Its a strange work culture.
Where do we go from here as planting becomes more professionalized (its happening) and wages are appearing to become increasingly stagnant (generally speaking). Again, I recognize its a production industry but its starting to feel like the industry needs to grow and develop and look after its people better.
We are an intensive obsessive people in general but it feels to me we are starting to miss the point. Does this resonate with anyone? Is anyone loving this work but just wishing the industry would chillout/restructure a bit? Who knows maybe more trees would survive. Ive worked for a number of respected bc companies and the workculture is the same whereever you go.

I am 52 and have been a consistent daily drinker for 15-20 years. What I'd call maintenance level. I don't binge. I don't really get drunk. By objective measures I'm functional — pretty much, not always! — but no DUIs or pants-shitting or embarrassing scenes in front of family.
But I have needed to drink 4-8 drinks per night for as long as I can remember. First I drank wine, and told myself it was okay because it wasn't hard liquor. During the pandemic lockdowns I had to switch to gin because I live someplace with state-run liquor stores that shut down, and that whole situation with the isolation made things so much worse.
I have tried to quit so many times. I have tried therapy, AA (hated it), naltrexone, acupuncture, hypnosis, white-knuckling it, getting on my knees and praying to a god I don't believe in… none of these things worked, because I wasn't ready.
What's different this time is that all of my past attempts were based on guilt, shame, and self-loathing. I knew that how much I drank was bad and I was bad and so I should stop being bad. But I didn't actually want to stop drinking, I just wanted to stop feeling bad about myself while continuing to drink.
This time, due to therapy and some other positive changes in my life, I actually, really, WANT to stop. I am sick of drinking, I do not want to do it anymore. What once was a "fun social experience" isn't anymore. I don't want to be beholden to my addiction. Strategizing how I can get to the liquor store every week. Embarrassed about how much more I'm drinking than my friends. Obsessing about making sure I get enough to drink. Feeling like shit when I wake up.
Right now, I am not motivated by shame and guilt, the way I was in the past. I'm motivated by wanting to feel better and be more present in my life. I want to be free of my anxiety about my health. I want to be a healthy person for my husband, who is my rock and my salvation. I want to FEEL GOOD, and I think that's possible, if I just stop drinking.
My psychiatrist is an addiction specialist. She has prescribed off-label Mounjaro, which shows a lot of promise for controlling alcoholic cravings. She will manage my detox with meds. I have a therapist I've seen for eight years. I have the support of my husband. I'm going to be open to the potential for AA meetings, in-person and online.
I really, really, want this to work this time. Please help me get through the next days and weeks and months and years. One day at a time, as they say.

33M, caucasian, non-smoker, social drinker, history of SVT with overall low risk factors. Currently taking Pantapropozole, Carvidolol, Multivitamin, Iron, Miralax. I'll attempt to make this short-winded and hope this counts as appropriate for this subreddit!. Around ~August 2023, I suddenly started having random spikes/drops in my sugar levels, as well as fatigue and notable weight loss (40 pounds over 4 1/2 months). My previous PCP started the workup and over the next ~3 months, I was in and out of hospital admissions/countless doctor visits. Over this time I started to develop more symptoms, most notably night sweats, increasing GI issues, and worsening fatigue/tiredness.
Because the symptoms were mostly non-specific, I had pretty broad, general workups with few things off (my hemoglobin dropped several points in November then slowly recouped back to 15.5. Saw a hematologist and he basically just said "you had a bleed, it clotted off and now you're recovering. If it drops again come back to me"). Full body CT w/contrast, MRI of spine/brain, colonoscopy/endoscopy, spinal tap, echo, CPX, countless blood tests which I would fail to mention all of, but including endocrine/rheumatological and autoimmune markers, as well as viral potential causes.
At some point in December my gp basically threw his hands up and said "we don't have anything to work with, the few abnormal things are recovering". Fast forward to February, I end up in the ER with severe nausea and a dull pain below my lower left rib cage. They do a repeat CT and mention that my spleen is still "minimally enlarged" but there are no noticable masses, and my liver is "no longer slightly enlarged". These are two things I was never told about, I suppose because they felt they weren't significant enough? But made me realize I needed another opinion/better guidance. The radiologist also noted on the report that I had "mild haziness near the mesenteric root of the pancreas level", but "pancreas unremarkable otherwise" as well as normal lymph nodes in the area. He recommended checking for pancreatitis and/or mesenteritis.
I go into a new GP in March. She's fantastic - extremely thorough and importantly doesn't immediately try to blame this all on the easy things. She gets me into GI and hematology (had another GI doctor but she wanted me to get another opinion, as the old one basically said your colonoscopy/egd are normal, come back in 7 years). Hematology came first, and he basically said objectively, you acutely then chronically bled, used up all your iron stores which caused excess fatigue (fatigue/tiredness is still a primary issue for me but is substantially better than a month ago when I started iron supplementation) and now you're recouping. We can do a bone marrow biopsy or a PET scan, but I can tell you what they will show: nothing. I asked about the spleen/livemesentery involvement and he just said "your blood work and scans show no sign of a mass, if malignancy were making you this symptomatic, it would be more obvious and you wouldn't have seen any improvement. In addition your liver has reduced in size and your spleen is still barely enlarged with no signs of mass, malignancy doesn't act this way".
I leave the visit at least more optimistic about the situation, but still feeling awful and like this is some type of GI related malignancy that's killing me, frankly. (As a side note, symptoms became so problematic that I had to stop working full time which has obviously been another stresser during all of this).
Then the GI visit comes (about 2 weeks ago now at this point). We go over everything and he just basically says "let's skip the MRI and go for a pillcam to get a closer look at your small intestines, and an endoscopic ultrasound to take a closer look at your pancreas and this inflamed part of your mesentery". Sounds great to me! I know people go years looking for a diagnosis sometimes, but the last 8 months have been the most exhausting/stressful/longest of my life and he seemed adamant about getting to the bottom of this.
Here's where my concern/question comes in: back in December in my last hospital admission, the hospitalist asked what I thought this may be. I pretty quickly said PC, because of the way things progressed and the initial, non-specific symptoms + sugar issues (which seem to have mostly gotten better? I've also regained 30 pounds since, which is a "good" sign I know). He kind of laughed and just said "your pancreas has been imaged and looked at twice by two separate radiologists and neither saw anything to worry about" (this was before the February scan showing mesentery involvement). I kind of gave up on that idea/worry for a long time because of the assured way he answered my concern over it, but now I've got it in my head that that's what has been the culprit all this time and have been told CT's miss signs of PC pretty frequently, and the mesentery/spleen findings are a result of pancreatic tail or body involvement that's spread, which the GI did mention it was unlikely to be in the head as you'd almost certainly see bile duct involvement/jaundice evidence at this point, or the classic pale/clay stools, which I haven't had.
I know there is pretty strong evidence to this point to suggest it isn't a pancreatic tumor, given 3 contrast CT's now over 9 months with no sign of it, improvement in some symptoms (night sweats are virtually gone, fatigue is significantly better), some of the more obvious/common symptoms not being there, like the stool/jaundice, but instinctively this just feels like the right place to look. I'm not terrified of a diagnosis at this point, but I'm absolutely mortified that this is going to get worse before I have the chance to even figure out what it is because of the things that have continued to worsen (nausea/malaise in the morning especially, tiredness/dyspnea... Well, the dyspnea has improved since the iron supplementation as well, but considering I could get up and run five miles 9 months ago and now a small flight of stairs whip me...). The idea of losing ~6 months of valuable time if I'd pushed this concern harder back in December is also a hard pill to swallow. Speaking of, the pillcam is Thursday, and the EUS is the 28th. I tried to move it up but they are booked out (I feel like I they suspected pancreatic cancer they would have got me in sooner as well) and I don't want to push it anymore in the case that it isn't that, and I potentially take someone's spot that needs it before I do. I guess I'm asking for someone to talk me off this ledge and trust that something obvious wasn't missed, or even recommend I continue to push this as maybe it sounds like a familiar situation someone has witnessed in the past where it ended up being something like PC. I think I've mentally accepted almost every potential outcome of this situation except for that one, which likely has to do with me being intimately familiar with what it looked like in the end for a friend.
That was... Long-winded. Sorry, I tried haha. I wish you all the best of health moving forward!