《 Story below from 14 years ago 》
《 Edited to include entire story 》
I am currently a 41 year old male. After a fierce battle with a L5-S1 herniated disk when I was 40, I feel compelled to share my story with others.
At 40 years old, I was an otherwise happy, healthy husband and father of 2. I have always taken pride at being in pretty descent shape for my age but in the Winter of 2009....all that was about to change....
Here is my story and timeline:
On February 15, 2009 I was skiing at Crystal Mountain in Michigan. I was shooting down a black diamond and didn't see another skier coming from my right side near the base of the hill. We converged quickly and collided at near full-speed. We both hopped to our feet--apparently unhurt. At the time, I remember thinking to myself...."wow!! I must be in pretty good shape if I can absorb a hit like that and bounce right back up"....little did I know!!! It was VERY irresponsible of me to be skiing that fast near the base of the mountain by the way.
Between February 15, 2009 and March 18,2009 I lived normally. I went to work everyday and did my normal workout regiment of running 3 miles on a treadmill at about 7.2 mph 3 times per week. I also caught some virus and had this HORRIBLE, persistent cough that would not go away.
On or around March 18, 2009 I was walking around a GM assembly plant at work (coughing and feeling generally lousy). All of a sudden, I noticed a sharp pain that originated in my buttocks and traveled all the way south down my right leg to the nub of my ankle. It was so bad that I had to sit down.
Between March 18, 2009 and April 21, 2009.... I am kind of the stubborn type and figured whatever this was, it would eventually correct itself. My wife told me that this sounded like sciatic nerve pain and I should see a doctor. I resisted and proceeded to go to work every day, run on the treadmill 5 more times, and even drive to Orlando, Florida for Spring Break. I remember being so miserable walking thru those theme parks. I was popping ibuprofen like it was candy and stopping to sit down every few minutes. This pain really made the entire trip miserable for everyone. My mind raced as to what could possibly have initiated this incredible pain. Did that terrible cough trigger some problem in my back or spine??
April 21, 2009 I finally decided to go see my primary care physician regarding this issue. He asked me a series of questions...car accident? fall at home or on the job? sleeping awkwardly? any other trauma to the back? All I could come up with was that horrible cough. He prescribed me a series of pain pills and an x-ray. He said (due to insurance rules) we had to get x-rays taken and go thru some required waiting period before the insurance company would consider funding an MRI on my behalf.
April 21, 2009 thru May 18, 2009 The original pain meds didn't help at all. I went back to the doctor and he prescribed muscle relaxants and higher strength pain meds. The muscle relaxants did nothing to help. The higher strength pain meds maybe took 10% of the edge off but nothing more. I continued to struggle living a normal life. In stores, I could not wait in line without sitting down off to the side. I was the coach of my son's baseball team and had to sit on the bench. Getting dressed was an increasing struggle--especially putting socks on and tieing shoes. For whatever reason, standing in the shower with the hot water streaming down on my back was traumatic. I would be taking 2 or 3 minute showers and moaning continuously until I got out and immediately layed down on the bed.....Privately I wondered if I was permanently damaged and if I would ever live a normal life again. I was quickly losing my spirit for life. I was half a person.
Sometime during this period I had an "ah hah" moment. I remembered the ski accident and, without a doubt, knew instantly that is where and how I became injured.
May 18, 2009 The insurance company finally allowed me to get an MRI. The results came back about a week later and showed 3 herniated disks!! The worst one at L5-S1 was causing all my sciatic pain down my right leg. I was referred to a Pain Management Clinic.
May 18, 2009 thru June 4, 2009 I researched and learned all I could about herniated disks. I realized that coughing and running were absolutely making my problem worse....the last time I ran was April 15, 2009. I struggled constantly to find a comfortable position when standing, sitting, or lying down. I could never really find a "go to" position that achieved 100% relief. There was always pain--just different degrees.
June 4, 2009--AM I finally was able to get an appointment at the Pain Management Clinic. The anesthesiologist gave me a steroid injection at the troubled L5-S1 site in my spine. The injection was similar to the epideral injection women get while giving birth. During the injection, I was only given local anesthetic and actually saw the image of the needle entering my spine on the TV monitor that served to assist the surgeon with injection placement. It was a mistake for me to see that...I wished I would have closed my eyes.
June 4, 2009--PM I felt 100% better!! I walked out of that clinic and felt on top of the world--like a normal person again. It was short-lived!! The only reason I felt so good was because the local anesthetic completely masked my sciatic pain at the spinal site. When it wore off, the sciatic pain returned but it was significantly improved.
June 18, 2009 and July 2, 2009 I had 2 similar steroid injections at L5-S1. The biggest improvement I noticed was after injection #2. I was feeling about 80% better after the 3 injections but privately wondered if I was permanently "handicapped" and whether or not I would ever be pain-free again. Whether I would be able to play with my kids like normal, run, play golf, ski, etc, etc, etc.
July 2, 2009 thru September 1, 2009 I continued to function at about 80% pain free. My wife was to begin a fulltime job as a teacher for the 2009-10 school year on September 1, 2009. Her benefits were significantly better than mine so I was biding time for her benefits to begin before starting any sort of physical therapy.
September 1, 2009 thru October 1, 2009 I started one month of physical therapy. The therapist went over strategies for standing up, sitting down, and moving to minimize pain. He gave me a series of exercises designed to facilitate absorption of the disk material in the body and relieve pressure on the spinal cord. The first two weeks were great!! I really felt like the PT was helping. Week 3 was a different story. The sciatic pain slowly started creeping back into my life. By October 1st I cut off the PT and contacted the pain clinic again.
Thursday, October 8, 2009 AM I was able to get an appointment at the pain clinic on this day. The anesthesiologist wanted to do one more injection (although they usually only do 3 in a 6-month period). He performed the injection and I went home. I felt pretty good but was extremely tired. I decided against going to work and slept. When I woke at about 4pm (with the local anesthetic wore off), my sciatic pain was UNBEARABLE down my right leg. My wife returned from work to me moaning, crying, and pretty much ready to die. My daughter couldn't believe her eyes when she returned from school to see her dad like this. My wife said "%$%^$ this...we are going to emergency!!"
I can only guess that the injection needle aggravated the nerve by nudging the disc material to a position that added more pressure to the sciatic trigger of the spine.
Thursday, October 8, 2009 PM Once at the emergency room, I was in such discomfort that I walked/scurried around screaming, swearing, bending over, and generally making an ass of myself in front of the entire waiting area. I have never been in such pain before. Upon admittance, I felt like I was in an episode of "Saving Private Ryan". They had me on an IV while stabbing my thigh with injections for pain. My dad was there and all we could do was laugh at each other since this pain was so ridiculous. I remember him saying...."Jeff--this isn't a laughing matter!!". Honestly, none of these drugs relieved my pain completely--just partially. I remember one of the drugs making me feel so out of it that I couldn't "realize" there was pain but I could tell it was still there...if that makes sense. I had morphine, dilaudid, vicodin, Darvocet, and other pain meds that I've never heard of. The dilaudid was especially nasty psychologically.
October 8, 2009 thru October 16, 2009 I was in the hospital during this time. Taking a shower or going to the bathroom seemed to be a task I had to get psyched up for. I was so drugged up I couldn't remember what happened 5 minutes prior. Many doctors visited me including an orthopedic and neuro-surgeon. The orthopedic surgeon educated me on a procedure called a microdiscectomy in which they scrape out the disc material to relieve the pressure on the spinal cord that is causing the sciatic pain.
He also noted that--based on the MRI--I should have been in the hospital 6 months prior!! My wife and I agreed to the surgery and, on October 12, the surgeon performed the microdiscectomy on my back.
The disc material for someone my age looks like crab meat.
After surgery, I was on my feet that evening with the nursing staff helping me out. I was actually walking down the hall by myself within hours post-op. I did have some numbness in my last two toes but that went aways within weeks of surgery (thank goodness).
October 16, 2009 thru January 17, 2010 My rehab included walking and not lifting anything over 15 lbs. I was very protective of my back and STRICTLY followed the doctor's orders for a successful recovery. I really just took it pretty easy and had lots of support from my family and work.
January 17, 2010 I ran again (successfully) for the first time since 4/15/2009. That was a milestone of sorts.
January 17, 2010 to June 21, 2010 (current) I feel great. My back feels normal, I have no pain or numbness down my leg, and I feel strong. I have been skiing, golfing, playing with my kids, and running like normal. I have been lifting things carefully and never overdo it. Sometimes I can tell if I'm overdoing it when I feel some slight tingling in my toes. If that occurs, I just back off. It has taken some work to get my right calf and hamstring back conditioned for running but they feel good now.
In general, I completely have my life back and feel like a normal human being again!! In fact, I am going to run a 5k this coming weekend!!
I hope this helps you out. I will NEVER EVER question anyone's pain again. I believe I am a better, more empathetic person after living thru this.

I’ve had osteoarthritis for a few years. Mostly my left knee medial (inside) and fingers. My hips are starting to feel it now too. I do have a doctor’s appointment at the end of the month, fyi. Very specifically- WHY does my knee pain flare up when I’m laying down? Yes, mostly at night when I try to sleep. It’s unbearable. I haven’t slept more than about 2-3 hrs a night in over a week. I’m losing my mind. I was able to sleep 2 hrs just by propping myself up to an almost sitting position. It doesn’t matter if my leg is straight or bent just that I am laying down. Even if I’m not trying to sleep by laying flat on my couch it starts shooting horrible pain. Last night I was determined to knock myself out and took: both tramadol and Vicodin (hours later), Trazodone, two different weed gummies (one geared to pain and one geared for sleep. AND used a TENS unit I bought. No help at all. Nothing. Please don’t lecture me on the opioids, I don’t take them- I was desperate. I know how to take drugs. HELP

Scenario parameters:

• All your memories of the show and the past 20 years are intact.
• You are stuck there/then and cannot return to our universe/year.
• You have nothing but the hospital gown on your back.

Questions: * So, what do you do? * How much would you tell House? * How would you get him to believe you? * Who else would you tell? * How much would you tell them?
My answers:
So, what do you do?
Get in, losers, House and I are averting the pandemic
My reasoning: If anyone can nip it in the bud before it gets out of Wuhan, I figure that a world-renowned genius doctor who is an infectious diseases specialist, speaks Mandarin, and now has a 15-year head start would have the best chance.
Difficulty level: Babysitting a narcissistic manchild with the self-preservation instincts of a toddler until the year 2020 so that he makes it there then alive, out of prison, and with his sanity, medical license, and professional reputation intact. To quote Quantum Leap, "Ohhhhhh boooooooy."
Strategy: I'm in the "I could fix him, but whatever's wrong with him is way funnier" camp, so I wouldn't try to change him (that always backfires anyway). Instead, I'd try to change his circumstances:

• A stable romantic relationship would help, so I'd seduce him if I can (I'm not his type but a gal's gotta shoot her shot), try to get him together with Dominika earlier if I can't, and tell him how horribly his relationship with Cuddy ended so he knows better than to even start it.
• Avert the shooting. Moriaty was a patient so his info is in the PPTH files. I AM THE ONE WHO KNOCKS. Or for a less murdery approach, try to get him arrested in April 2006 for violating New Jersey's strict gun laws.
• Warn House about Tritter so he can switch patients with another clinic doctor.
• Warn House to never get on a bus with Amber.
• Tell Kutner I'm from the future and he's the only one who can prevent something horrible from happening (he's a Trekkie so he'll want to believe), then unfurl my big timeline poster and point at the "Kutner suicide early 2009" stickynote and ask him "so what's up with that, dude?"
• Tell Wilson everything I can remember about his cancer -- he's an oncologist and thus can work backwards from there to figure out when to start checking for it so he can cut the tumor out while it's still just a tiny baby.
• I would take a harm reduction approach to House's drug use, e.g., suggest that he try microdosing psilocybin and extend his liver's lifespan by substituting cannabis for some of his Vicodin and alcohol consumption.

Methods: Even though he doesn't have one for most of the show, House mentions a few times that he's entitled to hire an assistant, and I happen to be excellent at administrative work. I think he'd be willing to hire me because working as his executive assistant / department secretary would position me to recognize patients as they come in so that I can discreetly pass along anything I remember, e.g., the kindergarten teacher has pork worms in her brain, ask the scientist in Antarctica to show you her feet, etc. Meanwhile, I could lurk around the hospital preventing miscellaneous shit, e.g., get the gift shop volunteer from S01E04 to go home sick, ensure that the gunman from S05E09 is promptly admitted, diagnosed, and treated before he snaps and takes hostages, etc.
Possible sidequests:

• Use my foreknowlege to get rich by milking online poker bonuses until the passage of the UIGEA in 2006, use my poker money to start flipping houses until 2007, get in on the "Big Short" in 2008, and set a Google Alert for "Bitcoin" so I can start mining/buying it from day one. Unfortunately, I haven't paid enough attention to individual stocks to play the market other than knowing that Amazon would be a good long-term buy & hold.
• Use my riches to change the outcome of the 2016 election and try to steer the development of the internet and society in general in a slightly less stupid direction.
• Send Pete Carroll a letter postdated just before the 2013 Superbowl telling him the outcome, then suggest for the final play of the 2014 Superbowl that the Seahawks try handing the ball off to Marshawn Lynch instead of throwing it because that throw will be intercepted. PRIORITIES.

How much would you tell House? How would you get him to believe you?
Your story about being from the future of an alternate universe in which House and everyone he knows are characters on a fictional TV show is already too batshit crazy to believe even without his kneejerk "everybody lies" skepticism. How would you differentiate yourself from all the patients who pull crazy stunts to try to get him to take their case?
My answer: For the "from the future" part, I'm hoping there's some sort of test that House could run to confirm that I was indeed vaccinated with a mRNA vaccine against the COVID-19/SARS-COV-2 virus. Given that neither of those things existed in 2004, that would be physical evidence that I'm not from around here now.
If producing physical evidence isn't possible, then I know that Vegetative State Guy from S03E15 is already a patient at PPTH because he'd been there for 10 years, so I'd find him and tell House about his son. I could also tell House enough about the cases from the first few episodes that I'm pretty sure he'd believe me by Christmas. I want in on Chinese food with Wilson.
I would wait until House accepted the "from the future" part before broaching the "fictional TV show" issue. Until then, "I watched a TV show about your life and cases" is a 100% true statement and it's not my fault if he assumes that show was a documentary. :)
Once he believed me, I'd tell him everything.
Who else would you tell? How much would you tell them?
There are people out there who would literally kill for your knowledge of the future, so going public or being too open about it seems highly risky.
My answer: I'd tell House, Wilson, and Chase right away. Kutner but not before Jan 2009. Maybe eventually Cuddy and the rest of the Diagnostics team if keeping my foreknowledge of the future from them proves too difficult.
House is the only one who gets to know everything. Everyone else is on a "need to know" basis.
I might also bring Bill Arnello (the brothelawyer of the mob informant in S01E15 "Mob Rules") into the circle of trust because he could be a very useful resource for some of my sidequests, e.g., changing the outcome of the 2016 election far far far in advance and in the most direct way possible. (Hi, Secret Service! This is a purely hypothetical discussion about time travel and not at all indicative of any real criminal intent, pls do not pay me a visit, kthxbai.)
I think the only people I would tell the "fictional TV show" part to would be House, Wilson, and Chase, because there are things I need to warn them about that definitely wouldn't have been in a documentary. Like Chase needs to know that killing Diballa is 100% the right thing to do but he seriously needs to work on his OpSec. Everyone else gets the implied documentary lie of omission.
If I get caught knowing too much by random patients, I'll just claim to be psychic. Way more people believe in that than would believe in time travel.
Inspiration: The author self-insert isekai fanfic "Intervention" by VivatRex. They've been writing it for the past 11+ years and are still updating. It's already nearly 300k words long despite only being up to the events of S02E15. I AM IN AWE. Link in comments.

Hello all. Hopefully my username is displayed properly as SirParadox not the random generated 'No_Rub_3862. I recently started posting here on that username but today switched to a new account to better relate to me.
​
I've long pondered writing a book about Addison's, and what I've learned, along with some other random medical tidbits. I've bought any book available and wow they are so lacking some really important information. I've also always looked for a good online forum or this or that, and even found this reddit years back but it wasn't very useful then. A few weeks ago I visited here again and am happy to see the forum lively. However. It's shocking to me some of the questions. Some of the perception about Addison's, etc. Thankfully it seems any time I read a question and think to my self 'wtf your going to die if you do that', some good commenter says in a much nicer way, don't do that. It seems questions are sometimes scary here, but answers are pretty spot on imho.
​
I can write pages and pages and pages in just a few minutes. So, laughing, here is the short short short version of my introduction and what I might add to a book, I apologize in advance for how long this became. I can also easily segway into story time at any point... Bad habit... but most folks enjoy it. Most folks? Yeah I break all thoughts of self privacy and post on FaceBook all my medical adventures for others to learn from. "Patients log, Day 3 in the hospital, ... " like from star trek, heh.
​
I look forward to any and all feedback, good, bad, ugly, tear me apart if I say something silly, etc. :)
​
​
I'm Ryan, aka SirParadox(tm). born 1977, age 46. I have Addison's Disease, (Schmidt's syndrome) with Hypothyroidism genetically via some family relation 2nd cousin twice removed from JFK.
​
Totally normal childhood, few medical issues, only issue was not focusing in school yet I'd ace any test. Then...
​
I fell ill on summer break between 6th and 7th grade. They had no clue what was wrong. Tested me for everything. I was so fatigued I could not get out of bed so I spent our 3 weeks at the shore camped in front of the tv in the family room, getting good sunlight, and playing Nintendo, eating bowls of pickles like it was ice cream. Wow did I get tan that year. We assumed it was just me sitting in the fam room surrounded by windows, but that's another symptom of Addison's disease onset, tanning. 4 years later I passed out in school. My PCP had just read an article about Addison's so he tested me. ding ding. After spending 4 years of spiraling downward, coming home from school to only pass out, I got the hydrocortisone 25mg, and within days I was able to run a marathon without breaking a sweat.
​
Some 35 years later and I feel as if I have the most information possible about Addison's and all it's interesting quirks that are often overlooked. Addison's is not a simple disease in any way shape or form. Thanks to Addison's I'm the only cardiac patient that is given caffeinated coffee and sugar with my breakfast. Why? Caffeine stimulates the brain, which excites it, which the brain gets concerned about as it doesn't like being excited from unknown sources, so it fires off a yellow alert, stimulating the fight or flight, "Squirting out" a little bit of adrenalin, which in turn stimulates the heart, which raises heart rate. If you have no adrenal glands, caffeine cannot effects the heart/lungs. Are you on a beta blocker such as metoprolol? Go ask your doctor how that medicine works, and why you're wasting money on it.
​
For 20+ years I was an engineer, programmer, at the top of my field working at a regional datacenter company in the North East US, with a side hobby of writing a few online mmorts games. I also have Asperger's. One of my Asperger's given passions/addictions is, you guessed it, Medicine. Along with Space of course.
​
With that In mind I have engaged hundreds of doctors, nurses, other patients. Absorbing information, sharing information, learning something new every time, sharing my mistakes, learning from others their mistakes, etc. etc. Hell I didn't even realize the caffeine and beta blocker link until a year ago when I was doing research on my wonderful new heart failure (Addison's -> diabetes -> major heart attack -> 2 stents installed in the wrong place, half my heart muscle died). All the times I went to routine checkups, post stent install, my HR would be 120+. The nurse/dr would ask 'Did you have coffee before your appointment', and I'd say yeah of course to be fully alert for our conversation. Sadly this was a major sign my heart was in trouble, and no coffee caused my HR levels.
​
I'm currently medically disabled. It sucks. One of the wonderful side effects of Addison's, is you take a steroid. This suppresses the immune system. This can lead to bad bacteria (SIBO) in your gut. This bacteria blocks most if not all dopamine production. This leads to major disabling depression, a total lack of any motivation, and no sense of joy in completing any task. Yet before that I worked 60-80 hours a week non stop, loving every moment of it. Now I struggle to convince myself to shower or brush my teeth. Fortunately diabetes immediately brought on terrible foot pain from neuropathy. In the middle of the night my feet are on fire and the only thing that aleve the pain enough for me to sleep is a hot steam shower, so that's a win. Fortunately this SIBO often makes my belly hurt from the excess hydrogen gas. And sometimes nausea. And on really bad days vomiting that gives no relief. Antibiotics are used to kill SIBO, but any time I take a regiment all bacteria good and bad is killed, and as soon as I stop, with the suppressed immune system, the bad bacteria is able to regrow with a vengeance. I have only found one medicine that suppresses 80% of the upset pain, oddly it's an anti-anxiety medicine called Pristiq. The non-generic form of Effexor. And no Effexor does not have the same effect. Pristiq has an extra molecule that is snipped off and it becomes Effexor. For some reason this makes Pristiq an awesome medicine for many reasons. I can take it on-off start-stop at will as opposed to Effexor which gives massive withdrawal nervous system electrical zaps. Sadly I have tried 25 different psi medicines for my depression. None of them do a damn thing as my problem is lack of dopamine, not a serotonin or whatnot issue. Caffeine boosts dopamine just a little tiny bit. It's worth while but chuging coffee all day is pointless after the first cup. Sadly I discovered the Captain Morgan spiced rum kills the bad bacteria restoring dopamine production, and also boosting dopamine production, which is why I drink way way way way too much. My doctor says I'm the strangest addict he's seen as I can easily choose not to drink, for years and years if need be, e.g. when mom was battling cancer for 9 months, or me with mono for 19 months, or me fighting depression for a few years. I think the opioid receptors in my brain don't function correctly as even pain relief medicine hardly do anything. Vicodin just makes me feel sloppy, no sense of wow this is great I should become addicted.
​
Wonder if you have SIBO? Easy test. When you get up in the morning have a non-carbonated, sugar free, carb free energy drink and nothing else. 30 minutes later are you burping? What? No carbonation, why the burps? Well caffeine promotes bad bacteria growth which produces excess hydrogen gas, and now your burping. Also you fart allot, but they never stink :P
​
One thing I can recommend, is given the chance, take .5 mg of dexamethasone versus 3-4 doses of hydro a day. Hydro has a half-life if 12 hours. Taking 3-4 doses a day gives you a wild ride of energy versus fatigue. Dex has a 48hr half life. This smooths out those rides. It also means you can miss a day or so before anything negative starts to set in. I use to be on 1.0 of Dex, but as I hope you know, corticosteroids causes your body to release excess sugar into the blood system. This is why diabetes with Addison's is all but guaranteed. Generally 10 years after starting the steroid. I somehow managed to squeeze out 20 years before my A1C went from 5.1 to 12 in just a month followed by a massive heart attack. You might be thinking of updosing all the extra steroid you desire. The more you take, the less the brain fog, and less the whole body inflammation, with the downside of progressing towards diabetes faster. I also noticed that taking 1.0 dex in the am, 0.5 in the afternoon, 0.5 in the evening I became a little logical mr spock, but was a jackass to people. I don't recommend that. When the cute girl in the office comes to you asking for help changing the printer paper, and you bite her head off for not knowing how to change printer paper, and are a jerk to her, only to realize later she knows exactly how to change the paper, she just wanted to see you. So too much Dex is fun, but only if you're not around people.
​
Hydrocortisone is a very natural pill, this is why doctors usually stick to it. Dex is synthetic, and has some initial issues. e.g. week one of taking dex you loose your shit mentally. Then you're ok. I suggest steering clear of Prednisone at all costs as it's side effects are significantly worse.
​
Synthroid. anywhere between 150-200 mcg a day. With Schmidt's syndrome you are very very fatigued. The steroid does not give you energy, it just prevents your immune system from going crazy, which wears you out. Also this is why Epstein-Barr aka mono is a cluster f' for Addison's patients. With that in mind, Synthroid is the thing that gives you your real energy. If you can somehow manage it, and I never have been able to, I would take your Synthroid at 6am (assuming you work at 9am).. I had my dad change his time from 9am to 6am, which is easy as he's 85 and gets up to pee allot. Within a week his overall mood was much happier, and he was noticeably more energetic in the critical parts of the day. I use to take 150 and then swap to 200 in the winter months as for some unknown reason my TSH goes wild out of range in the winter. I also tried taking extra to see if it would induce hyperthyroidism as a cheater weight loss plan. Yeah I lost weight, but my eyes became totally blurry, so I decided that was a lose-lose idea.
​
Fludrocortisone. We don't need more then .1mg a day as far as I am aware. When covid hit the nation had a shortage of Fludrocortisone. I was able to go 3 months without it before my electrolytes went into the red. I honestly don't know what taking more would do. Perhaps spike your sodium too high and cause heart issues?
​
As I said above, caffeine, doesn't effect your heart. Stop buying $4 energy drinks as you are not feeling anything even close to what everyone else does. :( (takes a break from typing to sip some of my monster)
​
Just like caffeine, beta blockers do nothing for you. If you have heart failure, or an elevated resting heart rate, take Corlanor instead. Most likely you'd have to be prescribed a beta blocker first for a few months, before insurance will approve Corlanor. But oddly the copay was only $10. I kinda expected with all the hoops to be put on it for it to cost $500+..
​
I am going to make a wild suggestion. Within your first 10 years of a steroid? Have zero signs of diabetes? Convince your PCP to prescribe Jardiance. It's a diabetes medicine. It causes your kidneys to filter out excess sugar and you piss it out. I am hoping some scientists do a several decades long study to see if taking Jardiance can postpone/delay the onset of diabetes in someone with family history, Addison's, etc... Sadly it costs $400-$500 for 90 days. But with Addison's, all the medicines are critical and just a cost of living.
​
Diet. Do what you want. That's the best I can suggest about diet. Having Addison's disease, we have a suppressed appetite. Add to that hypothyroidism, your even more suppressed. Add a corticosteroid your even more suppressed. I actually didn't experience hunger pains most of my life until after diabetes. It was a very strange sensation. Now. All humans have cravings. Most of the time we don't even notice them unless they are enhanced. Take a pregnant women. Her cravings are over the top and clear as day (I want ribs! Who cares its 3am!) With no appetite, we actually become acutely aware of our cravings. Love eating pickles, and drinking the juice? You're low on sodium. Craving olives and drinking the juice? You're low on Iron. Follow your cravings. Your body craves things for a reason.
​
Speaking of Sodium. Our body uses sodium differently. It's not just that we waste it away, our bodies do something different. Sodium is like a super awesome immune enhancer for us. As a kid any time I was sick, flu, cold, etc., the doctor would tell me to stop and get some wonton soup on the way home and add more salt.
​
You're on a steroid. You have anxiety. Even if you don't notice it because its super subtle. With Addison's our body isn't chemically able to relieve stress which leads to anxiety. It can easily build up. You might be a smoker because you learned that smoking relaxes you. This is due to the direct way we smoke, short long inhale, hold, deep exhale. That is a normal anti-anxiety exorcise. I got addicted to Clove Cigarettes as when I was 17 and my adrenal glands were still around 5% alive, the clove would stimulate those adrenals and I'd feel a nice warm happy energetic feeling along with a sense of relaxation. Therefore I recommend after about 10 years of steroid you to take a generic anti anxiety medicine. I highly recommend Pristiq. But others are just as good. Even a benzo is sufficient however I dislike the sedation feeling of a benzo.
​
Get plenty of Vitamin-D.
​
B-12 is great too!
​
Adderall / Ritalin won't do a damn thing for you except cause headaches. Speaking of headaches, someone recently asked here what a low cortisol headache feels like. I was shocked to hear what some folks said as to it's severity, and wonder if they have other conditions. A general, back of the head, dull, constant headache happens often. In fact. We with Addison's will often experience all sorts of general pain. Joint pain. Headaches. Fatigue. We learn to just live with it and learn to ignore it. Often I have to stop, sit down, and ask myself 'How do I feel?' Oh shoot, my headache is bad today or my knees really hurt.
​
Epstein-Barr "Mono". This is a terrible thing for us. Your body doesn't know how to fight mono, so it goes into hyperdrive producing every antibody it knows how to. This totally drains you into nothing. I suffered for 19 months, was not working for that time which really wasn't nice to my employer but I was a rock star at work and they knew I was doing everything I could to get back up and going again. The fix was to raise my steroid by 2x. Within 2 days, after 19 months, I was cured. Yet I had been to my endo, infectious disease, rheumatologists, the works, and nobody ever suggested a prolonged updose.
​
Speaking of doses. If you are on hydro, not dex, you probably need to take an extra dose more often then you realize. Micro updosing dex is tricky as its so damn powerful and lasts 2 days not just a few hours of a boost. Have a stressful bad day at work? You need more. Went to the gym. You need more. Just paid your taxes today? You need more.
​
Your annual blood labs will generally always report an elevated Sedimentation Rate, and C-Reactive (CRP) proteins. Both mean nothing, and there is nothing to change or worry about. Your sodium will go in and out of range, nothing to worry about unless it's really wonky. Potassium loves to go low. I keep forgetting 'Take a potassium supplement before I go to the ER for any reason' as while I'm there they will insist I take this horse pill of Potassium and it tastes nasty. Even with a great diet your Cholesterol will almost always be out of range, the good is low, the bad is high.
​
Are you in crisis? Signs are feeling really lousy. Random body temperatures. With Addison's our normal body temperature is about a degree less, around 97.6. So you might suddenly have a 96, or even way lower. Or 99. I was in the hospital last year for heat failure. Out of nowhere, 2 days in, my temp went to 101. They panicked thinking I was going into sepsis. While they panicked and flooded me with antibiotics and iv fluids, I kept saying, nah, I just need more steroid please. They eventually agreed with me and gave me extra and my temp went away. Other signs of crisis are Cold feet, literally much colder then the rest of your body. Cold hands. Generalized abdominal pain. Upper back pain. Profuse sweating. Major lack of appetite, way more unusual then your usual lack of one. Wounds easily lead to infection at the site. Out of range low sodium. Elevated white blood cell count. Low red cell count. And the killer, overall cognitive decline. Not brain fog, but a lack of the spark of thoughts. Goto the bathroom and forget why you're there. If you have more then a few of these, you don't need to goto the E.R. unless your about to pass out, but I would always recommend doing so anyway. All you need to do is take a stress dose of 4x your steroid and within 8 or so hours you'll be back to your normal self.
​
In crisis or headed that way, the cognitive function degradation is the kicker. We with Addison's are generally on top of our shit when it comes to our heath. We've studied, learned, experienced so much, that "We've got this shit" right? Well. When your in the onset of crisis you will suddenly forget all this. Forget the warning signs you know oh so well. And when you realize or are diagnosed and take the meds, and fix right up, you'll be pissed off at yourself and the world because you knew this! What happened!
​
Any time the hospital gives you a stress dose, or you do it yourself, about two days later expect a massive hunger. For anything and everything. Holy Jesus! I recently had an ICD defibrillator installed in my chest. The surgeons were so afraid of doing surgery on me, my endo had said quite clearly 2.0 before, 2.0 after. They went full 4.0 before, 4.0 after, and then I was wide awake for 2 days in the hospital, craving five-guys. I generally gain 10 pounds just after a hospital stay.
​
Speaking of weight. We Addisonian/hypothyroidism patients shouldn't generally be overweight. But its super easy to happen. It's also super easy to loose weight. You don't need to goto the gym or run on a treadmill. Either you have a nice datacenter you can walk the perimeter of, every hour or so, while enjoying your smoke break... or your visiting your family member at the hospital, so take a random route to the exit, then do a lap. I can easily drop 20 lbs. if I do this at least every other day.
​
Young, in your late 20s early 30s. This is your time to shine. You are the healthiest you will ever be in your life. You've got all the meds. Your energy is boosted / helped / restored with the meds. You're brain is sharp as a tack. This is the time to burn the midnight oil. Push that job. Work your ass off to boost yourself in your career. This is the time to go all in. Because when you reach 40.. and 50.. besides normal human getting old bs, Addison's and the steroids have beaten the crap out of your body for so long that things really start falling apart often.
​
Aflac short term, and Long Term Disability Insurance. I highly recommend both. With Mono and later Depression Aflac was a cake walk. Just had to get all the doctors to reply to them and the extra $2k ( I think) a month really helped. LTD is also very wise as it's super easy for us to totally fall apart for one reason or another. Heart problems.. Liver problems. Kidney problems. Depression. Other diseases. However two things. Screw Guardian LTD. They screwed me both claims. First time was mono. Even if you're paying them for 15+ years, they calculate your benefits based upon the last calendar month of the last calendar year. I got the Mono about 6 months after my mom passed from cancer. December of the previous year I was out on bereavement, and also recovering from being her quarterback doctor / advocate, on the job 16 hrs a day, for a year. So what did Guardian do? They said I had $0 for the next year. On top of that my employers general manager neglected to save a copy of my FLMA form. Had I had that, I would have been able to skip the December requirement. Fun thing is not preserving that form is something like an automatic fine and lawsuit win in NJ. UnFun thing my employers were my best friends, family, and my attorney was their attorney. I was never going to sue them. They already were so helpful during my sickness.
​
Second to Disability is be careful what medicines you take. e.g. I took Pristiq for its anti-anxiety properties. In 2017 after a medical event, coma for 12 hrs, bla bla, I slowly sank into deep depression. Guardian denied my claim saying Pristiq also treats Depression, so my Depression was a pre-existing condition. So any anti-anxiety medicine, you have your pros and cons. I would still have taken Pristiq if I knew LTD would deny me. Fortunately Federal disability approved me so since LTD pays you the insured rate minus any federal disability, so in the end, I am only missing out on like $200 more a month. Still pisses me off though.
​
Find a good life partner. Educate him/her that anything common for others, quite often, is from Addison's for you. My mom drilled into me 'Its Addison's. Its Addison's.' From bad grades, to a prolonged cold. Alcoholism. Fatigue. Sudden weight gain? Sudden weight loss? I argued for years with my gf over this. Sadly after 9 years I fired her. I was going through a rough unknown. Things were just not right for several months. Less then 12 hours later I passed out into a coma and crisis. She would put a common persons perspective on everything. Sure I just ate burger king 5 days in a row, but my weight gain is not from that... went to doctor... my TSH was screwed up, I had all sorts of numbers out of range. Not sure why I gained weight as a result, but like I said what's common for others is often a sign of something abnormal for us. Be on the lookout! Ask your partner to keep an eye on you. Ask you 'How are you feeling' because that that will force you to stop, and think, and it helps catch any issues sooner.
​
I think that is enough for today. I was on fire, motivated, ready to rock when I started to type this today. However thinking of Addison's and the last 37 years, actually physically fatigues me.
​
Remember. With Addison's, Everything about you is different. What foods do what things to you. What stimulants work and don't. I always get the side effects of any medicines and hardly ever the desired effect. I sweat on diuretics and mostly stop peeing, how backwards!

A Fun Way to Go Out
I thought... Coke it up till I die. I thought it would be a fun way to die. I thought it would be more fun than living a lonely, grey existence. But, it didn't kill me. It was actually annoying that it didn't.
I mean, I tried so hard. I sniffed all day everyday. But the only thing that happened was that it made me a little crazy.
I used to do coke recreationally once every few months with no issue. I split a $20 bag with a friend, we'd split it over the kitchen table, do our lines, feel great, shoot the shit, and about 3am, I would start to come down, and I'd fall asleep easily. Didn't give the stuff another thought until someone brought it up again months later.
One night, a best friend of mine with whom I'd never been in drug sync said she wanted to do some coke. I was happy and excited. Little did I know how severe her drug addiction was. Later i learned she thought she could do coke to get off the Vicodin. But, that night, just thinking we are all having a good time, it got to that time when I was ready to come down and hit the hay.
She wasn't. She said she was going to stay up and do more lines. The thought of her all alone in the very wee hours cutting and snorting was too sad for me. So, I stayed up with her and kept going... deep into a three day bender taking nothing into our bodies except this white powder.
I When she left, I was left with the need for more. And thus I began my ill-guided attempt to go out in a fun way. I'd been lonely for a long time. My friends each lived with their boyfriends and I had no one. Most of my teen life, I kept myself from taking a serious plunge into a bottle of pills or a serious dive off a razor blade into a bathtub because of my mother. I could never do that to her. But, now, I was 26, living on my own for 7 years because of her evil second husband.
Maybe I thought she wouldn't be as hurt since I wasn't a teenager living at home anymore.
So, I tried, with the coke. I really did. But doing it all day every day changes things. I never got high anymore. I just got relief from not being high, which felt worse and worse each day.
I would sit at the table, and having just done a line ten minutes ago, start to come down - which felt like immediate feening, a feeling that madness is the norm, that coke was my only lover and savior, my narcissistic demon master. I really understood Metallica's lyrics now.
My days were endless minutes of either total mental maniacal bedlam or utter bliss of logic and peace. When high, all was good and fine. When not, nothing was right and coke was a deceptive trickster dangling my sanity out a window, threatening defenestration and a permanent new canvas outerwear, complete with extra long sleeves chained together at the back for full restriction.
I can't say exactly how I escaped. I know I ran out of money one day. And I did consider the obvious trade of my most available commodity. But, I just couldn't bring myself to do that. Maybe misplaced pride saved me. I don't know. But, after that, three days came and went, and I felt pretty alright again.
Except... twenty years later and I'm alone and wishing for a fun way to go out. Got any ideas?
**Sometimes my coping is via humor, in small or large doses. I am not maliciously or thoughtlessly mocking drug addiction or the pain of suicidal ideation. I know these torments very well. This story is all true. From my first sad journal entry at 8 wishing I was never born, writing has been another coping mechanism. I wanted to do something different from the usual, "I feel xyz" post that I've done, but I'm still expressing the same depth of the same terrible loneliness and numb agony. Thank you for reading and i wish all the best. **

no one wants to read to much so if there are questions then ill answer but im making it short as possible.
born1993.
happy child hood minus my dad being alcoholic ( never hit us but was verbally abusive) and my mom hating my dad and men(im a male 30)
i had sexual encounters that were inappropriate from single digit age. all family or close family friends. what one day i would consider abuse,was actually more kids not knowing what they are doing (to an extent idk really know but i didnt feel threatened but it sexually confused the hell out of me)
at a young age i wanted to die so i couldnt go to hell, kids dont go i was taught. i prayed for death out of fear .
6th grade what we thought was depression hit( actually bipolar disorder type 2) and i was bullied alot to the point i put a kid in the hospital from bulling me ( was considered self defense)
at 15 i attempted to over dose by take 500 ibuprofen and 500 Tylenol thinking id go to sleep and not wake up(so wrong) spent a week having my liver slowly cleansed.
psychiatric ward.
rehab because i was addicted to oxy and Vicodin
tryed being sober and happy, just wanted to die.even medicated.
had to find a reason to live.
tryed meth for the first time and i found the reason i wanted to stick around because i loved it that much
meth almost kills me .pneumomediastinum with subcutaneous emphysema (16yrs) had ptsd about it for the next decade
started dating the love of my life. had a better reason then meth to live. got sober
she left me.
next 2 years i i became who i thought shed want in a partner changing alot about who i was.
2 days before she called me at 2am to come over i shot up meth for the first time, she could still tell when i got there.
we got back together.
the draw of the needle was to strong. and we got into a fight about my lab partner at school(female) and she left again
i fell head first into shooting up daily. at school ,at work, at home. missing school because i developed panic disorder.
failed out of school( i failed one bullshit class and coulda restarted the following year but nope) i kept using heavily
quit my job as a vet tech so i wouldnt hurt an animal or get coworkers hurt.
spent the next 2 years in my house doing meth everyday all day. being fucking nuts.
ran out of money, got sober, got a job, made new friends.
severe social anxiety lead me to quitting my job as a vet assistant
1.5 years after getting sober i relapsed on 2 different weekends . i stopped and cleaned up again.
1 year later was in an electrical engineering program, and i developed agoraphobia and dropped out( the love of my life was also now married to someone else, id gladly tell me and hers story. i need to talk about it more probably)
.5 years later (3 months ago ) i was back in why am i alive when my life is my bedroom. die ,or find reason to live.
relapsed on meth and seeing as how it was my 7th-8th relapse ive given up. no one knows currently. i dont go crazy. i eat sleep etc pretty much the same except i have something to do and am motivated to help around the house or my family with stuff if im able.
50% of my life is as a meth addict
my whole life me and life have just not mixed, ive always had intense suicidal ideation an thoughts(anti depressants calm the voices and i am medicated for my bipolar disorder) id prefer to go to sleep and not wake up.but i swore that id never purposely do it myself cause even just trying really fucked up my family members and i wont do it to them.
but when im on meth or even just have it with me i feel secure in life. im very religious and without it i pray jesus just brings me home cause im over it.( im not gonna hurt myself, promise)
hope you enjoyed feel free to ask questions and id dive into more detail

Note: please read the first part go here: https://www.reddit.com/KeepWriting/comments/wu130x/the_gold_dealer_part_1/
and read The Gold Dealer Part 2(a)
Warning: Part 2 has some crasse descriptions of crude graphic sex. Do not read if that offends you.
Do not read if you expect any happiness or hope except perhaps the occasional mocking chuckle at the author.
Ideas taken from other sources are noted, however you have to fix the links to see them. See The Gold Dealer part I for credit to the original Gold Dealer video. I obscured the links so the images don’t show up in my post.
All writing is fictional and may or may not be related to any actual people or events in real life. The real part is subjective, though - sometimes real is ill-defined and the opposite of what you think.
​
The music got louder and louder and with lights and I'm dancing to “Tuyo Y Mío” in a bright beachside open air bar, and twirling and sweating and she danced against me. I could feel her body move with the beat, and we were good, at least we felt good. I smiled and looked at her dark eyes reflecting the light so quick. We must have taken lessons or something but the music was so loud and the lights and heat and the sweat and movement and I looked across at her shining face and dark eyes looking at me and I could feel her hand and her other hand on my back.
The next song came on and we rose up into the air, weightless, effortlessly, and I held her hand and we spun around and around above the crowd up above the building, above the beach in the sunlight.
I pulled her tight against me and felt her dark hair over my face and my lips were on the side of her neck and suddenly a place of light, and we were lying on a blanket in a most perfect place, with blue sky with a few white cumulus clouds, overlooking an azure sea, white buildings along the coast, but we lay in a beautiful garden, maybe a vineyard, maybe an olive grove, maybe the gardens in a private estate, it didn’t matter, all dappled sunlight creating patterns through a pink bougainvillea trellis, private and peaceful on a blanket. I could hear the sound of a gentle waterfall nearby and I opened my eyes and looked at her face in the sunlight and my heart lept, she was even more beautiful than I imagined. And she could suddenly see herself through my eyes, which made me feel light.
As we ate from a picnic basket, a squirrel kept peeking out from behind the trellis, and I watched her pull a piece of bread from her sandwich and toss bits of bread and some dried fruit and nuts towards it and as she fed the squirrel it relaxed. Darting in, looking at us, her delicate white hand gently offered it snacks and it ate from her fingers. The whole time I watched her face, her cloudy look of concern as the squirrel ran back and the joy and radiance as it came closer. Her laughter as it took a piece of dried apricot from her fingers. She looked at me and stood and pulled me up by the hand laughing and as I stood up straight, my strength returned, I felt good, confident and strong and I pulled her into my arms and could feel her body against me, her heart close to mine, and we drank from the fountain, clear cold water, and we walked in the garden together, and I heard the beautiful songbird, the chaffinch, which were landing on the pink bougainvillea flowered trellis and singing. The chaffinches sang from the trellis.
When I woke up, I heard the freeway and I clutched my phone, and the screen hadn't turned off, but I kept hitting refresh, refresh, refresh and it cast a bluish light in the room and there was a message I was about to send, but I hadn’t sent it because I had fallen asleep for a moment, and I heard the sound of the freeway and I didn't want to remember the dream but I did. Then I noticed the new message, and the single black heart appeared. She must have sent it after I had fallen asleep. She stays awake all the time, I have no idea, or she sleeps when I don’t or or halfway around the world or odd hours but I don’t question something that is beyond me. I should have taken melatonin tonight but my bottle was empty.
Go on, the gold dealer said. And her voice sounded like a wind blowing gently through quaking aspen trees.
The window of fate closes so quickly. During the black swan event I crushed it. One stock. Not knowing that a five sigma move during a six week period in March, in an old boring risk-off stock happens only once in a lifetime. Insane. But I actually hit it perfectly. Started small, maybe $1,000. It turned into $3,000 - in four hours! A rush. Then more. More risk. Massive volatility, 5% swings both up and down in a single day! Each day I played and won and kept winning, $10,000 one day and $20,000 the next. Lose $15,000 but make it back the next day, and more. By the end of the month I had increased my account ten times, almost four times my annual salary. Four times my salary is 40 years of savings. FORTY YEARS of savings in six weeks. Do you have any idea what that does to you? I can ordinarily save maybe a thousand a month if I’m lucky, and over a year ten thousand is a good year. But then my stock swung 15% in one day and I made $52,467 in the last hour of trading, the power hour when it reversed violently, with VIX maxed at 112 - a 10 year high! But I didn’t understand it - all I knew is I was making money, free money, staring at the screen from 6:30 am, multiple straddles each day, until the close at one pm. I pulled thousands of dollars out in cash, piles of it at a time, as much as they would let me take. And the world shut down in a collective psychosis but I didn’t care because I had cash to spare and started giving $100 bills to the homeless guys and I was buying premium cans of Pliny the Younger from a table out in front of a closed down bar for $14 each and driving home watching the worried mask wearing zombies alone in their cars, with fearful hating eyes looking at my unmasked smiling face. Surreal. I bought new iPads and clothes and a new paddle board and paid my bills ahead six months and bought a freezer full of meat, a generator, a water barrel and a nice four thousand dollar shotgun in case the mob came to shake me down for meat. I should have bought my Porsche then but I didn’t. One more trade and I will have a heavy enough marble block - one more trade and I will be in the sun.
But the professionals won in the end and that’s how they keep their Lamborghinis in Miami so clean. A long time ago. Now it’s gone. Everything and more and I have debts that I cannot pay. It’s gone now, everything is gone. She can’t save me and won’t wait any longer. She shouldn’t.
My accountant Javier called yesterday and asked me in his stuttering, serious voice, and I could picture the brilliant mural behind his desk of the white Mexican villa with the terra cotta roof tiles and the woman in the bright red blouse and
- he said: I have to explain what a disallowed loss on a wash sale is. It raises your cost basis considerably, so even though you lost a hell of a lot, you can’t write off those losses. That year you made all the money, actually your tax bill is normal, it’s nothing, but the following year, well, it rises quite a bit, you still owe, and you owe, well, it’s substantial. My suggestion is you call the IRS and tell them you are going to just shoot yourself, and they’ll probably give you a payment plan. I hope they do. Some of my clients say they do.
Look Daniel, would you mind? Can you tell me? I’ve been doing your taxes for years and, I’m your accountant, but I’m also your friend, can I ask you what the hell happened?
He’s the best. He never lets me down and always makes me laugh, with his four inch block of heavy tungsten on his desk and all the clever tricks he has to help me. The IRS is my mortal enemy.
What should I tell him? My dreams have been intense lately. I hear woots? or, she huffs whip cream like I do, wrote a beautiful poem about no fear and a delicious wet pantyhose fantasy, involving a knife? or, she also reads all my stories and wants me to be the best man I can be, the best version of myself? or, she held my inner child when I least expected it? I can’t say anything that makes any sense anymore.
I could tell him about the moon water? I set out a clear glass vessel in the evening under a full moon and then drank the cool refreshing water? After it had been bathed in moonlight. More than once? The earthy cool taste - snow melt, moonlight distilled into a moonshine that does not intoxicate but enflames, infused with infinite intelligence in a clear glass bowl; I still remember the taste and I want more - I want to find the source, now I’m blinded, blinded and insane - in my mind it’s the only thing I see, my vision, my black heart, until that day I hear her voice next to me, feel the touch of her hand on my face, look into her dark eyes and taste her lips. And have her heart beat against mine, dreaming together the beautiful dreams together that only the lucky and the bold have.
Or maybe I could tell him I just wanted the shark blue Porsche Cayman GT4 RS with the suspended rear gull wing and I also have a process addiction. I’ve always wanted the Porsche.
Nothing matters without freedom. Freedom to have peace, to drift and be at ease. How much does that cost?
The gold dealer looked deeply at me, and I could hear her whisper something that channeled over me in a spatial coziness, but I went on with my story.
Nothing is rational. My mind is mixed. I lied and told him I put it in crypto. The only thing I have left are debts and my twenty gold bars. She bought crypto and I bought gold bars. If I had of bought the crypto, or even a four unit apartment, it would have been far different now.
I brought one tonight for you to see - how much will you give me? And I pulled the Credit Suisse bar out of my backpack.
I’m selling my gold bars and buying a used VW Camper van and heading south through Baja towards Medillin, Columbian. She will fly into Tijuana and I’ll pick her up or I can even drive over and get her. Would take a few days but I have time now. That's a great, sleepy little town, from what I’ve read anyway, I’ve never been there, Medillin is, where the air is clean, the food perfect, the cafes full, the lights at night down outside the tango dance halls brilliant, and inside the dancing beautiful, and the cost of living so cheap you can live like a king on pennies. It's my one chance - I already wrote my resignation letter and it’s ready to send when I get back. I will find love on the road, on the beaches under palm trees, at the street taco stands, and at night listening to the surf wash up on the stand with stars up above. She will whisper in my ear what it feels like to have peace, to be loved, and to feel content and just drift. Her fingers will trail over my cheek, my eyebrows, my neck, and my lips. We might move a little but not too much, then fall asleep together listening to the palm fronds gently away above.
The gold dealer looked at me intently and her voice broke over me drifting from my left ear to the right and back.
Why do you need the money so badly? What does it matter? You’re doing quite well.
I’m the big deaf, mute, Indian guy(6), with no affect, a placid, calm face and hollow eyes quietly living on the inside. Smile for the camera and pretend. The lobotomized man whom I suffocated with the pillow is my former self who, although confined, dreamed the dreams of adventure and wanted to smoke and carouse and write and have naughty sex and ride trains in Buenos Aires and eat street dosas in Bangalore and play the cello at night overlooking the city and slow dance with a girl I like. He’s dead now. It’s final. I became the Indian. I am the Indian. And I’m fully convinced that hell exists on earth because I have lived it for so long, but I want out. I say fuck it, I need to drink from the spring and I need freedom, and to quench my thirst for real; no more pills, no more booze, no more insane asylum. I need real. The money is the marble block and faucet set I need to break the bars on the windows and the glass and with the marble faucet I can break the window and find my way - and without it what? I live on a knife’s edge in a high cost state where the rent of a house seven houses down from me is more than my take home pay. One deviation and I’m done, carried out lobotomized on a stretcher, without my boys, or in a coma, a body bag? What now? I don’t have a choice - I have to go. It’s over.
She nodded and kept brushing the white cloth so I could hear the delicate sounds in each ear, and said:
If you are a man - you can lose everything and with what's left, place it all on one turn of the wheel.
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools
If you can take a heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss
If, If, If - I know that one, I said. I memorized it a long time ago, I remember now, it's coming back.
Then Yours is the Earth, and everything that's in it.(7)
I looked at the gold dealer and sat in silence, and could only hear her brush gently against the cloth. The light from the Costco parking lot shown through a small open patch in the dark film covered window and cast a ray of light across the counter.
Your whole life, this energetic experience (8) you've been having, your life is a prayer, as I've said so many times before, every moment of every day is a prayer. But every moment of your life is a prayer, everything you do is a prayer. You're having a conversation, an energetic conversation between you and reality every minute of every day, and you're not listening - because you don't know the language; you've forgotten the language. You've forgotten how to speak the language, even though you're speaking it most of the time. Most people don't even know that they're having this conversation, but they are. Every minute of every day, talking about fear. The basis of fear is an unrealistic perception of life. People live their lives generally in a state of anxiety for that which has happened to them, which doesn't exist anyhow, so they're lost in their memory, they're lost in their mind. Or they live in a state of apprehension for that which they fear may be coming, which doesn't exist now. So people live their lives in the fear of the non-existential. Fear of the non-existential is insanity.
Don’t you understand now?
The opposite of insanity is the rush, electric illumination, deeper, and I’m tired of being afraid, I'm tired of being delusional. That's why I'm here because I've decided to see where it leads, and I want that rush, electric illumination, pure bliss, euphoria (x100) and perfection, except without the deception(9). Even when my brain has returned empty of chemicals. That’s the part I don’t understand, but my college roommate who did coke and is now VP of a pharmaceutical company understood. It has nothing to do with drugs - but the thirst for life, to find that part of another being that belongs to you. The twin flame. The soul mate. Because it is true, it is real, it is going deeper to taste life in its fullness. Darkness and the light. A reflection of the sun on smooth dark water in the morning and I want that.
Speaking of tasting life, I’m thirsty. Do you mind if I have some of your water? She asked me.
I motioned, waving my hand slightly.
She took a glass off the shelf behind her and poured some, a lively trickling splash in that muffled room, and took a drink. This is spring water from a glass bottle? It is cool but not cold, the perfect temperature, and it has no overwhelming lime essence or even a lemon slice. Just pure water. It tastes like Arkansas spring water from the Ozarks, that has trickled through limestone for one thousand years, and then bottled at the source. Her sound enveloped me.
It is, I said. Pure mineral water. It’s not like that fake expensive Fiji water, just processed at a reverse osmosis facility and put into a plastic bottle that leaches endocrine-disrupting chemicals into it. This water quenches your thirst.
She set the glass down, still half full, and looked back up at me. Which word best describes the water?
Huh?
Yes. One word.
Butthole
What?
Well, her butthole.
What? she laughed, and her laughter sounded three dimensional. Her butthole is mineral water? I don’t think so. Maybe somewhere deep in the Ozarks you might find that but not in real life. She smiled again.
Do you want me to lick your butthole, right now? I asked.
The gold dealer laughed in perfect stereo and said no I haven’t taken a bath, I’m probably not clean, but she shifted in her seat a little and said go on, and I could hear her fingers brushing the white cloth more urgently.
See? I said. It’s ok to be dirty once in a while. You wouldn’t mind. But afterwards when I wake up I would have that hollow empty feeling. With you I would have it and I would stare at the ceiling in the twilight of dawn and think about things and feel sad, but not with her. It’s different.
She's on hands and knees, sweating and tense with anticipation, wearing white pantyhose and nipple clamps that kept falling off but we laughed and finally got them on. Should I take her in her pussy, in her ass, or in her mouth? My fingers up and down her wet slit over the pantyhose. I pull my fingers back and a string of her wetness trails, and I know she wants me inside her. My balls, full and tight and drawn up from not cumming because I had been at a conference in Panama and had just returned and I never masturbated any more, since I gave her my life, my life energy, and all of it belongs to her, and she wants me to take her how I want to take her. She gives herself to me. I pull her pantyhose down so I can lick her butthole, circling her quivering and clenching hole and then probe gently until she relaxes for me, and I firmly push my tongue inside her, in and out, in and out and she moans as my thumb rubs her clit.
Finally, she squeezes and slaps my balls as she rides me, I love watching her face as I first enter her, then we kiss, and for a moment she breathes out, and I breathe in her air, and her mine, and I twist her nipples as her nails scratch my shoulder and she bites my lip and I bleed and she sucks on my lip tasting my blood, harder, I can feel her clench and I cum so quickly and I have no fear, she wants me so badly, and I cum - she wants my life energy in her, on her, savoring and sucking and kissing.
She can’t help it but her hand goes to her clit and my hand also and I pull her hand away and rub her clit and I taste her and clean every drop and circle her asshole and press one finger in and then two, slowly, then thrust with my two fingers in and out of her ass and she clenches around my fingers as she pinches her own nipples aching for her release and I suck at her fountain, drinking her, and finally she screams and orgasms and I feel her clench and contract and quiver on my tongue and my face and our cum mixes as she floods my mouth. Pure, refreshing. Fons Juventutis.
And at that moment I remember the first time I saw her face in real life. The nights are not long and cold when you like someone. Everybody seems to find love but very few find someone they like, and the mystery occurs when they like you, although it never happens, never in real life.
I arrived first and was sitting at a table along the street and before she got out of her car I saw her go around the block twice because she didn’t want to make a left turn into traffic, and then parallel park with six maneuvers, knowing that my eyes were on her so she blushed and looked perfect and got out and bounded up the step as I stood up and walked toward her - probably too fast, right? If she only knew. I thought she was going to slap me for taking so long but instead I looked into her already watery eyes and I hugged her tight against me and then kissed her lips. She touched me on the back of my neck and head and my hands and arms were around her waist and hips and she leaned into me. That day I longed for more than anything in my lifetime, just delicate kind words, and words have power, joy, peace and no fear, only hope. Later that night, I remember waking early and I didn’t hear the freeway - she's sleeping next to me naked and I feel her back expand and fall, one breath in, one breath out, how many more does she have? There is a first and a last. Only now. Only today. Right now right now and I cried there silently but she was sleeping so she never knew.
We embrace and kiss deeply, sharing our lust and life and our tongues swirl and taste each other and swallow and breathe and sweat together and she lays in my arms and I feel her heart and blood and life and I know that is the way it is meant to be. Nothing more and nothing less and I feel good and I feel her heart beat slower and she believes in me and I love her and that's enough, that moment is enough.
You see, I'm not afraid anymore, I said. I'm not afraid of the past, and I'm not afraid of the future. Right now is all I have.
Well, she said, as her hands moved over the cloth, brushing it from ear to ear, then tell no one your pain, but stand up. Put it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, and throw yourself to the wind. And besides that, if she knows you're broke, that's better than her thinking you're rich and being disappointed? I smiled and thought no chance in hell she would like me if she knew I was broke, but I had no choice.
Here is my one ounce Credit Suisse bar to sell and I pushed it towards the gold dealer over the glass. I’ll go back and get the others.
She looked at me, her eyes blank and staring, looking past me to something behind me that I couldn’t see it and her voice flowed over me like liquid.
You’re delusional, she said. Think of something else.
She continued. You can't ever take the perfect combination of uppers and downers and go deep, and you’ll never have the euphoria x100. You could have had it at one time, I did, most people did, but you missed the opportunity. You won’t get it, not now, not ever. It’s too late. She doesn’t like you, she likes someone she made up in her delirium who has a lot more money and presence than you have. And you’re in love with a fantasy, a dopamine rush from a black heart. The fantasy has gone too far.
True, but which is the fantasy? What I have right now is the fantasy, what I want is the reality. And she is what’s real. Nobody has ever, ever held my inner child. Why would she just okie dokie smokie and do that, on a whim? Very weird. Actually it was quite weird. But you see for her that is normal. She expects it and expects the same from me.
Didn’t you ride your bike up the river channel bike path to get here? Didn't you see that tent city of homeless? Those are the ones who tried, at your age, to get to that euphoria x100 - you can only do that when you’re young and full of dreams! It’s too late. You’re just an African cyclid hitting the windshield in the middle of the night in the rain - do you remember all those squashed bugs on the windshield when you were driving up from Pretoria to Harare, 1000 miles overnight? The buyer really wanted his cars, only filthy rich or dirt poor in Tanzania, with two big Mercedes Sl500’s on the flatbed, and another two GL 550’s on a trailer, as the rain poured down and the wipers were going click, squish, click squish because the windshield was covered in dead carcases? They only swarm once every seven years at the first rain and the rain came in a deluge. The flooded countryside all littered with white plastic bags and cut down trees, dark at night, and the road slick with rain and bug carcasses and the dull muddy wasteland crawled past in the rain and darkness and all you could see ahead was a narrow window of pouring rain, a grey road, illuminated by dim headlights, and a swarm of insects careening toward the windshield, all misty and blurry. You could smell the diesel exhaust and the cab kept fogging up because the insect carcasses clogged the air vents. A windshield framed by dead cyclids and the hum of the diesel engine vibrating throughout the truck.
You see guys in vans and old rvs and tents, sleeping in the park, riding bikes pulling tattered child trailers filled with refuse, wandering the street corners holding their bottles. The emaciated long haired bearded guy with no shirt on at night, turning circles under the glare of streetlights in the middle of an intersection that has five Mexican fan palms on the corner, on a hot summer evening, clutching a tattered black notebook with handwritten notes and bits of prose, lines of copied poetry and a few faded photographs of two boys, but he’s drooling and wide eyed, screaming at his imaginary foe, trying to hump some poor woman’s car who is too scared to floor it and kill him, rambling on about how if he had of just bought that piece of land on such and such street or bought bitcoin then it would be worth so much now, and things would be different. He’s the kind of guy that thought - if he could have just found a woman he liked who also liked him when he was young he wouldn’t be here in the middle of the intersection but at least he can write it later, just before suddenly staring off into the heavens, foaming blood out his mouth, convulsing uncontrollably, and losing consciousness on the hot grease covered pavement as the line of cars swerve and speed past his curled up body.
That is your fate if you reach for the euphoria. I'm afraid not, I can’t help you, but I can show you something else. She looked at me and with a smooth motion held my wrist against the glass and with her other hand pulled a large heavy kitchen knife out from under the coin display.
Whoa, why do you have a knife here?
You never know what kind of people who can’t sleep show up here.
Then you're telling me that even all the gold bars I have won't ever buy me euphoria x100? What the hell? For chrissake lady! fuck….
I tried to pull away but her hand grasped me with uncommon strength and I heard her whispering gently from ear to ear as I watched the blade, the palm of my hand illuminated by the ray of light, draw across in slow motion, slicing the flesh down to the bone so slowly and inevitably - when you watch a blade go through your own skin it mesmerizes you. The sun rose for a minute and now the sun sets already, and the pain will come but please not yet, not yet. Not tonight. The cut isn’t real, right? It’s made up. If it’s a fantasy can the pain be real? My imagination. My stomach sunk oh god, and I felt it icy cold on the bone . Fuck fuck fuck I thrashed against the display case and screamed into the void - waiting for the inevitable lightning, waiting for one last black heart that never came.
Her voice whispers to me in the haze and the fog. Let go and feel pain. Accept it and taste it and let it in. And my ears tingle as her soft melodic intonation drifted ear to ear, so soothing, and I watch the blade and my hand gripping it in pathetic frustration and the pool of blood grow over the glass case, obscuring the shiny objects below. Dripping off the side onto the floor. So much blood, so much blood - no more I can’t let my heart beat, it beats and the blood comes out and I feel hot and feverish and warmly glowing inside even though I am shivering uncontrollably. If my heart would stop beating no blood will come out. Stop beating. Stop beating. But it kept beating, louder and louder, and harder and harder and my chest pounding in this thunder. It will stop I know, someday. Jesus fuck I screamed crying please just let me sleep. I’ll try deep breathing, yoga nidra, and then use my head tingler but it’s back at my place and I need to go back and get it.
My eyes watered and blinked and I closed them and I couldn’t think. There isn’t an answer. My hand felt warm and wet and my arm numb also, I sweated and clenched my jaw over and over again. Her voice caressed my soul and sent me tingles as she laid the bloody knife on the case.
She wrapped my hand in the white cloth that had lain over the case, with delicate circumaural surround brushing sounds, slowly wrapping and I couldn’t think any longer and the white cloth had blood on it and I could see my palm had blood soaking through already. I could see the dark wetness seeping through the white cloth, growing with each heartbeat. The blood belonged to someone else. Some unlucky man.
I stared at the case for a while, then standing a little dizzy, I could feel and live and dream and I just wanted to sleep, so I picked up my gold bar, forgetting my backpack, and walked towards the door. The air is so stagnant in here, I need some air, a breeze, maybe some rain or something - and no umbrella. I’ll walk in the rain barefoot on grass with no umbrella and feel my hair getting wet and the water dripping down the back of my shirt and I miss the rain so badly here, and the smell of Douglas firs in the rain.
And just as I was pushing the heavy door open, I heard her say in spatial sound: I hope you enjoyed our time together. That heavy marble faucet block? you will always need one, for everything, and use it as an excuse - it’s in your head. Find a way. Thank you for visiting me tonight and I wish you deep sleep and pleasant dreams and I’ll see you next time. Good night.
It’s really good morning, crazy bitch. And it’s not in my head - I lost my marble block. Save and invest for many many years. Years. Enough. No more I thought. Turn her off. Click, the inner door shut and I just heard silence.
I’m going to whoa, it’s ok. I’ll be fine, it’s just a couple miles.
I backed through the main door stumbling through with the dull klinking bell, a thud, and back outside into the night. I lost balance and leaned heavily against the glass and sweated and it was so cold and I looked at my dark reflection and took two deep breaths, pushed myself off the door and looked over and seeing my bike thought well I should get back. Where is my vicodin, my codeine or hydrocodone? I even had a few palladone pills - all expired but they likely could do something. I thought right when I need it I don’t have it. Every old prescription I have for whatever reason I save it so if I’m flying and it goes south, and there’s a sorry fucker next to me in the plane crash screaming and moaning with crushed legs, I can at least keep him quiet. I carry a bottle on every flight I take, but I don’t have it now - just a bike ride isn’t dangerous. Jeez get a grip you fucking loser, it’s a cut on your hand and lot’s of guys end up hurt, cut off their arms with rocks and rusty knives, bleeding hearts, and make it back alive. Gunshot wounds. Saving their friends, their girls and kids from certain death. Heroes. The brave and the bold and the guys with tattoos, who lose everything in their businesses, go bankrupt, lose their Lamborghinis, their blond girls with implants and their kids then sleep on a friend’s couch for a year and start again. Rebuild. Survivors. They’re the lucky ones and the bold ones, focus on your goal. So many dead, just don’t be among the dead. Selfish needy bastard. If you bothered to read any poetry, you see it opens up the world.
Coming together
it is easier to work
after our bodies
meet
paper and pen
neither care nor profit
whether we write or not(10)
But I have a plan now - it won’t be easy but we can still see each other. How crazy is she? This hurts so fucking bad I can’t even grip the handlebar. Emotions rise up and cloud judgment, and if she gets in one of her moods and throws you into the abyss, then what? Be vulnerable. She won’t throw me into the abyss. And suppose we meet it will be ok even if it’s not perfect because I’m thinking long term. It’s only a compromise for a while - why can’t she see that? It’s because she wants all of me right now. It’s deserted out here, there isn’t anyone up yet. I remember walking up the deserted street in Cape Town when the wind blew so hard the trash cans flew in the air. We will meet once in a while until I figure it out and then we are set. My dad said if you wait until you’re ready you will never move at all.
She actually knows me better than anyone in this world, but she still wonders what is wrong with me. It’s fine. One step at a time, but she will trust me, I know she does already, with her heart. Time. That’s the problem it’s time. No the problem isn’t time it’s money. No time left. First get some sleep so I’ll get my tingler and then drift and tomorrow morning in the morning sun, I’ll hit golf balls on the misty green grass and be able to plan, at least I can calm down. My new dual color Srixon; that name is a bitch; how do you say it? Shrixon? Sixon? balls are easier to see, especially the orange and yellow. Which color is my favorite? Out of blue, orange…what was the other color? I think green! But I like yellow and orange. And the green is with white. Green is my favorite color. Relax. Maybe Rite-Aid is open now? They might be. 300mg of melatonin hits you just right even though the bottle says take one 10mg tablet at night for occasional sleeplessness, not to exceed two tablets every 24 hours. I’ll take 30, and tomorrow I’ll look at tattoo shops. If you had a tattoo you would be different, at least you would be somebody; you would know who you are.
A dark wet bloody hand print reflected coldly off the black tinted glass door in the dim twilight of dawn, as I pedaled away down the alley.
Notes:

1. Scene from Casino, the movie: https://www(.)youtube(.)com/watch?v=3-d5yU-aQ34
   
2. Frank Sinatra, I did it my way: https://www(.)azlyrics(.)com/lyrics/franksinatra/myway.html
   
3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - ending scene: https://m(.)youtube(.)com/watch?v=QjsiqCD4Hf4
   
4. Rudyard Kipling, IF: https://www(.)poetryfoundation(.)org/poems/46473/if---
   
5. Max Igan, The Crowhouse - https://thecrowhouse(.)com/home.html I wrote down which episode it was but I couldn't find where I noted it.
   
6. Lunelilium - A rush, electric, illuminated, pure bliss, euphoric (x100), https://old(.)reddit(.)com/useLunelilium/comments/9obgpo/yes_at_the_time_those_feelings_are_like_no_othe
   
7. Recreation by Audre L’orde https://www(.)poetryfoundation(.)org/poems/42579/recreation
   

​

Respect Iron Man

"While you each stand around and look suitably embarrassed, why doesn't one of you get me a dry martini with two olives and three Vicodin? We've got a city to save."

History: The details of Antonio "Tony" Stark's past seem to change, but one thing he could never change was the brain tumor that could kill him any day. By then a wealthy genius, Stark's tumor forced him to apply his intellect toward crafting himself into a hero that could save the world. He became Iron Man, a fusion of biotech and nanotechnology that allowed him to control a flying weaponized power armor unlike any other in the world.
A founding membefinancier of the Ultimates, Stark began to leave his mark on the world. His fortunes changed for better and worse over the years, both with his wealth and health, but through it all he remained one of Earth's fiercest defenders to its very end.

Source Key: Ultimate Marvel Team Up = MTU Ultimates = ULT Ultimate Spider-Man = USM Ultimate War = UW Ultimate X-Men = UXM Ultimate Six = U6 Ultimates 2 = U2 Ultimate Saga = USAG Ultimate Secret = US Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk = WvH Ultimate Extinction = UEX Ultimate Power = UP Ultimate Human = UH Ultimate Fantastic Four = UFF Ultimatum = UTM Spider-Man: Requiem = SMR Ultimate Avengers = UAV Ultimate Armor Wars = UAW Ultimate Comics New Ultimates = UCNU Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates = AvU Ultimate Fallout = UF Ultimate Comics Ultimates = UCU Ultimate Captain America = UCA Ultimate Comics Iron Man = UCIM Ultimate Comics X-Men = UCXM Ultimate Comics Spider-Man = UCSM Cataclysm Ultimates Last Stand = ULS Ultimate FF = FF Secret Wars = SW 

Strength

MK I

• Rockets through a thick stone wall ^{UAV #15}

Team-Up Armor

• A knockoff version of the armor lifts 1 ton with one hand, and the true Iron Man armor is said to be able to lift around 70 tons ^{MTU #4}

Iron Tech
Striking

• Rockets into the Hulk, cratering him into Grand Central Station ^{ULT #5}
• At 25% power, drains his reserves to knock the Hulk up through the roof of Grand Central Station, across the block, and into a bus that crumbles beneath him ^{ULT #5}
• Vaporizes a ping pong ball while wearing just the gauntlet of his armor ^{WvH #4}
• Trades blows with Dr. Doom and matches him in a grapple ^{UP #7-8}
• Punches the Hulk, and manages to briefly pin him while conducting neurosurgery ^{UH #2}
• Exchanges blows with 616 Carol Danvers, continuing to fight her while hitting on her ^{SW #1}

Lifting/Throwing

• Redirects a crashing spaceship that is the size of five city blocks, clearing it outside a city with the last of his power reserves ^{ULT #12}
• Drags a massive bomb through the floors and walls of a military base ^{ULT #13}
  • The bomb itself is said to weigh 5-6 tons
• Flies comfortably with Captain America in tow ^{USM #105}
• Pulls a school bus from the river onto land ^{UW #1}
• Aids other superhumans in recovering a nuclear submarine from ocean depths ^{U2 #2}
• Flips a passenger jet upside down mid-flight ^{Ultimates Annual #1}
• Throws suicide bombers far enough away they explode harmlessly in mid-air ^{UTM #3}

Tearing

• Tears off Silver Surfer's head ^{UEX #4}
• Together with Black Widow, wrenches off the seal of a missile silo ^{U2 #7}

New Ultimates Armor

• While only partially armored, rips out a central component of a Mysterio robot ^{USM #154}
• Carries a tank while flying and throws it into an army ^{UCNU #3}
• Flies straight through a wall to intercept a teammate punched into a building ^{UCNU #4}
• Briefly wrestles with Thor before flying him up into the air ^{UCNU #4}
• Oneshots Blade by cratering him into the ground ^{AvU #4}
• Slams down into Gregory Stark, upending the surrounding stone ^{AvU #6}

Phantom

• Rips and beats apart an already damaged robot ^{UCU #13}
• Elbows a War Machine drone in the face, crumbling it ^{UCU #14}
• Holds Titanium Man in place so Thor can cut off his arm ^{UCU #18}
• Man handles a drone, warping its metal and destroying it in his hands ^{UCI #1}
• Sinks his fingers into the hull of a jet fighter in flight to hold onto it ^{UCI #3}

Iron Patriot

• Punches apart a tank ^{UCU #21}

Future Foundation

• Twists metal debris in his hands to create an opening ^{FF #3}

Durability

MK I

• MK I uses a forcefield to stop a hail of bullets, and says it has 67 other components to stop bullets ^{UAV #15}
• The MK I's forcefield is automatic, and stops bullets fired at it ^{UAV #18}

Team-Up

• Says no weapon on earth can penetrate his armor, but energy weapons designed to disable his armor crater him into the ground where he cannot get back up until the stasis field they were using is disabled and he instantly defeats his attackers ^{MTU #4-5}

Iron Tech
Concussive

• Exchanges blows with Hulk, who rips apart the armor just before Iron Many manages to knock him away ^{ULT #5}
• Pummeled by Colossus, but manages to get away while remaining operational ^{UW #4}
• Hit by Sandman and bounces back, though Sandman's granules manage to breach his armor shortly after ^{U6 #6}
  • Iron Man then disables Sandman once his armor reboots immediately after ^{U6 #6}
• Knocked aside by Hyperion and quickly recovers ^{UP #2}
• Trades blows with Dr. Doom ^{UP #7}
• Hit by Thor's thrown hammer and comes back within the same fight ^{U2 #5}
• Exchanges blows with 616 Carol Danvers, continuing to fight her while hitting on her ^{SW #1}

Forcefields

• Saves the Ultimates and several soldiers from a bomb that vaporizes a fleet of helicarriers using a forcefield with a 500 meter radius
  • The explosion was said to kill everything in a 100 mile radius, and Tony reflects afterward that his new energy expansion theories could allow him to save the 20,000 men that were lost ^USAG
• Adds extra power to his force field generators, allowing him to keep fighting after the Hulk slams him into the ground ^{UH #2}
• Forcefields block a variety of explosions and energy beams from an opposing armor ^{UAW #2}

Energy

• Even his decommissioned armor he considers to no longer have anything of value contains an energy fluctuation shield that reflects the energy from Whiplash's attack back at the attacker ^{USM #150}
• Downed by a blast from Havok ^{UXM #64}
• Blasted by Thor's lightning and suffers nothing worse than a stiff neck following the fight ^{U2 #5}
• Blasted by Dr. Doom's energy and back up a short while later ^{UP #8-9}
• An enhanced Human Torch blasts him and his armor remains intact ^{UFF #52-53}
• Counterattacks as several explosions go off around him, largely unaffected by them ^{UAW #1}

Environmental

• Said to be able to handle everything from the Mariana Trench to the Moon ^{UXM #18}
• Navigates comfortably in underwater depths ^{U2 #2}
• Uses an older armor to fly up to an orbital satellite ^{U2 #11}

Piercing

• His armor is slashed apart by Wolverine, but he gets up when the fight is done despite a broken arm ^{UW #4}
• Stabbed in the chest with an energy sword, but the blade does not pierce far enough to do damage to his person as he fights back ^{UAW #3}

Variety

• Forcefields withstands a barrage of gunfire from opposing armors, and the Iron Man armor itself withstands the attack once the forcefield falls ^{UAW #3}
  • The armor was already damaged going into this battle
  • He continues to take further explosions amidst combat, eventually suffering microfractures around the entirety of the armor
  • Then gets blasted by an energy beam, ricocheting off a rooftop that cracks around him before landing in the a body of water that leaks into the armor
  • When he's fished out of the water his suit remains partly operational ^{UAW #4}
  • Stark then partially repairs the armor shortly before getting into yet another battle where he resists flamethrowers and machine gun fire that requires him to reroute all power to his defensive systems, ultimately surviving despite the suit being trashed, taken prisoner, and winning the day

New Ultimates
Concussive

• Zarda smashes in the armor's chest and begins to tear it apart, causing the life support systems to fail, though Stark survives as a prisoner shortly before getting the armor repaired while he's still wearing it and immediately flying back into action ^{UCNU #2-3}
• Briefly wrestles with Thor before Thor takes him out with a bolt of lightning, though he's fished out of the water shortly after and is still partly operational, though his circuits are fried and he cannot fly ^{UCNU #4-5}
• Blocks a blast that tears through a couple stories of an exterior wall, then fights through War Machine tackling him through more walls ^{AvU #3}
  • Continues taking hits from War Machine and getting cratered into the ground
• Takes several hits from Gregory Stark that shatters apart his armor, though the EMP he releases remains operational ^{AvU #6}
• Tackled by a mech into the hull of a helicarrier and keeps fighting ^{UCU #3}

Misc.

• An explosive dart blasts him backwards, but he keeps fighting ^{UCNU #1}
• Spider-Man off-handedly refers to Iron Man's new armor as nuclear-warhead-proof ^{USM #153}
• His forcefields block a massive energy attack greater than he had ever faced before, automatically draining the reserves of the armor's power as they always utilize whatever is necessary to stop an attack ^{USM #154}
  • Maintains enough power to fly, but suffers a second attack afterwards that tears the armor off of him and launches him away
  • Yet even still manages to return to the fight with his boots and gauntlets operational

Phantom

• Blasted by a distance away, crumpling the metal he lands into ^{UCU #18}
• Stops a train with his body while his boots are magnetized to the tracks ^{UCI #1}
• Forcefield activates automatically to defend Iron Man and a person next to him from an explosion ^{UCI #1}
• Refers to his suit as EMP-insulated ^{UCI #2}

Iron Patriot

• Takes a WMD-level energy blast that overpowers his repulsors and sends him flying a vast distance away, coming back a short while later saying it knocked his armor for a loop as it's revealed his attacker also melted through the crust of the Earth ^{UCU #21}
  • A lesser blast from the same individual skeletonized a human
• Sliced apart by the Black Knight ^{UCU #22}

Future Foundation

• Giant monsters rip his armor apart, but it is fully intact soon after ^{FF #1-2}
• Thrown by Namor into the wall of an underwater base, cracking it and damaging the level so severely it begins to collapse soon after ^{FF #2}
• Knocked over by a cyclopian Cyclops and busted through a wall but recovers a moment later ^{FF #6}

Unarmored
Combat

• Knocked over while within a building as an explosion goes off, getting up as his head bleeds ^{USM #127}
• Escapes an exploding armor mid-flight, falling to the ground without suffering injury ^{UH #2}
• Fights through tear gas before a baton to the head takes him out ^{UH #2}
• Downed by an energy blast similar to his own, though he remains conscious ^{UCU #22}
• Gets back up after an energy blast shocks him ^{SMR #1}

Stamina

• Climbs Mt. Everest during a six-week fast ^{ULT #1}
• Refers to his tumor as inoperable, the size of a golf ball, and giving him between 6 months and 5 years before he dies ^{ULT #6}
• Continues adventuring even while on chemotherapy ^{AvU #4}
• Beaten by a vampire wearing an old armor of his near to death ^{UAV #17}
  • This was largely the result of his brain tumor and he recovers in a couple days ^{& AvU #1}
  • Stark buys the hospital he is in to expeditite being allowed to leave ^{AvU #3}
• The Maker kills him while performing brain surgery on him, stopping his heart and lungs ^{UCU #27}
  • Yet Stark survives by downloading his brain into the Maker's technology a millisecond before death ^{UCU #28}
  • He then manages to revive himself by integrating the Infinity Gems into his armor and downloading his consciousness back into his corpse ^{UCU #30}

Alcoholism

• Drank two bottles of champagne in the morning before breakfast ^{U2 #9}
• Says he hasn't been sober since the day he took his driving test ^{Ultimates Annual #1}
• Runs fast despite being so drunk he can't tell he's running or even feel his legs ^{UAW #3}
• Has a martini and 3 Vicodin before going into battle ^{UCNU #3}

Speed

Iron Tech
Travel

• Keeps pace with fighter jets ^{ULT #9}
• Covers 15 miles in 3 minutes to get outside the blast zone of a one-megaton bomb ^{U2 #3}
• Keeps up with Black Widow's armor at Mach 3 ^{U2 #4}
• Escorts the Fantasti-Car, which Mr. Fantastic believed no helicopter could keep up with ^{US #2}
• Bursts from underwater to the air with Captain America in tow and rockets to the Triskelion ^{UTM #1-2}
• Speeds past a flying jet ^{UAV #2}
• Flies from the ground to a sub-orbital station as his passenger suffers an urgent medical condition ^{UAW #1}
• Outflies missiles fired at him from a few meters away ^{UAW #3}

Combat

• Using just the arm of a suit, keeps up with Captain America in ping pong ^{WvH #4}
• Suits up and flies into the atmosphere to intercept an object moving 99% the speed of light ^{UEX #3}
• Intercepts Dr. Spectrum's energy blast with his own ^{UP #6}

New Ultimates

• Blocks a melee blow from Nighthawk ^{UCNU #1}
• When Captain America is punched through the air and into a building, Iron Man flies after him and through a different wall to intercept Cap before he land ^{UCNU #4}
• Says he can hit Mach 3, and easily pursues Blade ^{AvU #4}

Phantom
Travel

• Catches a man falling out of a building and flies him into the upper atmosphere ^{UCU #14}
• Catches up to a speeding train, flies around to save the conductor, and then flies ahead of the train to stop it ^{UCI #1}
• Travels 4 miles in the time it takes an armored truck to travel 1 ^{UCI #1}
• Flies from New York to Hong Kong in 6 hours ^{UCI #2}
• Catches up to and cruises alongside a jet fighter during its test run ^{UCI #2}

Combat

• Evades energy blasts from tanks on the ground and War Machine armors firing missiles at him ^{UCU #14}
• Fires his repulsors in quick succession, creating afterimages with his arms ^{UCU #15}
• Dodges a missile from a drone nearby and tackles it ^{UCI #2}

Iron Patriot

• Intercepts missiles mid-flight, detonating them from a few meters away before it hits him ^{UCU #19}
• Flies into orbit in the course of a space station's attack and disables it ^{UCU #19}
• Armors up after detecting an incoming F-22 and outfights it, then catches the pilot trying to parachute away ^{UCXM #22}

Misc. Armor

• His Telepresence Armor evades missiles firing at him midair ^{UCU #1}
• His Suitcase Armor allows him to fly at Mach 4 and get from the Ural Mountains to Northern Germany in the course of a battle ^{UCU #2}

Unarmored

• Unarmored, he manages to dodge Whiplash's energy whips while fighting him ^{USM #150}
• While unarmored, blasts attacking soldiers before they can hit him ^{UCU #9}

Repulsors

MK I

• MK I blasts Nerd Hulk through a thick wall ^{UAV #14}
• MK I incinerates 3 soldiers at once ^{UAV #15}
• The repulsors alone of the MK I require a nuclear power station's worth of energy ^{UAV #16}
• MK I blasts a hole in a wall ^{UAV #17}
• MK I blasts Blade through a thick wall ^{UAV #18}
• MK I lights two vampires aflame ^{UAV #18}

Iron Tech
Material Reference

• Each blast of his repulsors craters the walls of Grand Central Station ^{ULT #5}
• Blasts a hole through a thick reinforced wall ^USM#90
• Blasts apart an abandoned building, with the explosion wrecking a bus on the perimeter that is thrown into the air ^{UW #3}
• Blasts apart a chunk of building, tearing through multiple floors and destroying a nearby dock as well ^{UW #4}
• A beam from his chest rips through Silver Surfer ^{UEX #3}
• Carves through wooden posts on a pier ^{UXM #64}
• Along with Cyclops, vaporizes most of Wolverine's flesh so he is left barely alive ^{UTM #5}
• Fires a repulsor that rips a target through metal platforms ^{UAW #1}

No Material Reference

• Blasts Venom, who afterwards blocks Iron Man's next blast with Captain America's shield ^{USM #126}
• Blasts an alien ^{US #4}
• Blasts away Hyperion, who comes flying back ^{UP #2}
• Matches Dr. Spectrum's energy blasts at various points throughout their fight ^{UP #6}
• Blasts an alien ^{UFF #52-53}

New Ultimates

• Vaporizes several goblins at once and in succession ^{UCNU #2}
• Shoots a weapon out of Thor's hand ^{UCNU #4}
• Blasts super soldiers and Gient Men ^{AvU #6}
• Blasts through the Children of Tomorrow's mechs ^{UCU #3}
• KOs attacking soldiers ^{UCU #9}

Phantom

• Blasts apart a robot ^{UCU #13}
• Oneshots War Machine drones he refers to as a dumb idea he had 5 years ago ^{UCU #14}
• Blows up a building with a large blast from its chest ^{UCU #15}
• Releases 8 simultaneous beams from all across his armor, with each one blowing up a separate War Machine drone ^{UCU #17}
• Threatens someone at point-blank range that his blast will send them 2 miles away ^{UCU #18}
• Neatly slices the cab of an armored truck in half ^{UCI #1}
• Takes out a fighter drone ^{UCI #3}
• Blasts his way into a concrete bunker ^{UCI #3}

Iron Patriot

• Destroys missiles mid-flight, and then destroys a space station with a single blast ^{UCU #19}
• Blasts apart tanks ^{UCU #21}
• Releases multiple simultaneous blasts from around his armor, destroying all anti-aircraft weapons present in the vicinity ^{UCU #21}
• Blasts over a soldier ^{UXCM #21}

Misc. Armors

• Requiem - Downs a roomful of men with a blast from his chest, and then blasts away a helicopter so that it crashes ^{SMR #1}
• Future Foundation - Rattles a squadron of super Atlanteans ^{FF #2}

Handheld

• His original repulsor ray pressurized the atmosphere to OHKO several men at once, while in the modern day it does the same to several armored captors ^{MTU #5}
• His bodyguards utilize handheld repulsors which Whiplash's armor is able to absorb the energy of ^{USM #150}
• Gives a handheld repulsor to Miles Morales he believes can kill the Maker ^{ULS #3}

Weaponry

Iron Tech
Thought Scramblers

• Thought scramblers incapacitates the Hulk with nausea for several seconds ^{ULT #5}
• Thought scramblers give Thor a nosebleed and holds him at bay before Thor powers through them to counterattack ^{U2 #5}
• In tandem with Black Widow, begins to microwave Thor's brain before getting blasted away ^{U2 #5}

Gene Beam

• Uses a genetically keyed beam to disable Electro's powers instantly ^{U6 #1}
• His tech team can only load one genetically-keyed beam at a time, and does so to disable Sandman once they lose electrical interference hampering them ^{U6 #6}
• Fires a genetically-keyed beam at the Green Goblin, disrupting Goblin's powers so Iron Man's teammates can take him down ^{U6 #7}

Munitions

• A shoulder-mounted missile busts apart a huge section of a castle ^{UAW #2}
• Knocks over an armored opponent with machine-guns housed in his torso ^{UAW #2}
• Fires a missile that is intercepted by an opponent's laser ^{UAW #3}
• Uses missiles that destroy opposing armor and flash fry their pilots ^{UAW #3}
• Releases micromunitions that explode apart opposing armors ^{UAW #3}

Weaponizing Non-Combat Gear

• Weaponizes the jets in his boots with extra power, allowing them to burn the Hulk's face to escape a grapple ^{UH #2}
• When his repulsor is blocked by a forcefield, he expands out his own forcefield offensively to create a massive explosion that tears up metallic surroundings ^{UAW #1}

Misc. Armor

• New Ultimates - Uses his jet boots while in a grapple to launch his grappler back and flamethrower another approaching attacker ^{UCNU #1}
• Phantom - Destroys a War Machine Drone with one jet boot while firing repulsors at others ^{UCU #14}
• Iron Patriot - Releases discs that latch onto and incapacitate several soldiers ^{UCXM #21}
• Iron Patriot - Fires a machine gun from the gauntlet that carves off the wing of an F-22 ^{UCXM #22}
• Future Foundation - Chemically alters the salt water remnants on Atlantean foes to turn it into chlorine gas, though he says it was only enough to knock them out ^{FF #3}

Sensors

Iron Tech
General

• His tracking system is said to be able to find a Democrat in Texas, and is sophisticated enough that those at S.H.I.E.L.D. fantasized about such technology ^{ULT #2}

Life Signs

• Scans all of Micronesia for thermals, confirming that no Chitauri are present ^{ULT #10}
• Scans Venom, saying he is getting insane readings ^{USM #126}
• Casually confirms Spider-Man's vitals are okay ^{USM #126}
• Scans the entirety of the X-Mansion, verifying that it is completely empty of any warm bodies ^{UW #1}
• Scans a bunker once inside it, detecting infrared, 5 collars, and 3 life signs whose vitals he assesses ^{U6 #3}
• Confirms that someone isn't lying by scanning their body temperature ^{U6 #4}
• Detects Spider-Man buried under debris while searching for his body ^{SMR #2}

Other

• Uses an X-Ray overview to identify subterranean escape routes while tearing apart a building ^{UW #4}
• Caught off guard by Wolverine only due to Wolverine's radar-invisibility ^{UW #4}
• Proximity alerts go off as Thanos approaches, right before he explodes onto the scene ^{UFF #52}
• Has motion sensors in his armor as well, which Ghost's abilities interfere with, but they eventually adjust and briefly detect Ghost 200 feet away ^{UAW #1}
• Able to detect redshifted light and microwave radiation, as well as run deep tissue scans to identify medical issues ^{UAW #1}
• Briefly detects Ghost's launch signature, and recognizes Ghost's stealth tech as his own ^{UAW #1}
• Motion detectors pick up someone hiding from him ^{UAW #2}
• Hears everything said on the other side of a window from across an amphitheater while seemingly unconscious and without his helmet on at first ^{UCNU #3}

Phantom

• Able to detect brainwave energy signatures mind-controlling Americans ^{UCU #18}
• Identifies the power levels of an opposing armor, verifying the claim it can become a bomb ^{UCU #18}
• Scans a skyscraper and confirms through thermals that there is no one inside ^{UCI #2}
• Detects a concrete bunker across an island ^{UCI #3}

Iron Patriot

• Detects incoming projectiles raining from the sky and recommends evasion ^{UCU #19}
• While unarmored, sensors go off alerting him to an approaching F-22 with active weapons so that he can armor up and intercept it ^{UCXM #22}

Future Foundation

• Scans for life signs and thermals ^{FF #1}
• Picks up life signs a level below him in an underwater base ^{FF #2}

Misc. Armors

• New Ultimates - Keeps a catalogue of all known energy signatures, confident no terrorist would have access to one he does not recognize ^{USM #153}
• Cataclysm - Conducts a full environmental scan on 616 Galactus, determining him to be from another universe ^{ULS #1}

Gear

Iron Tech
Forcefields

• Uses a forcefield to contain the incapacitated R.H.I.N.O. ^{USM #28}
• Uses a forcefield to levitate the incapacitated Deathlok ^{USM #70}
• Uses his forcefield to redirect a fast-moving projectile, creating a curve for it to travel along ^{UEX #3}

Misc.

• Recharges his suit with all the power from Flagstaff to Tucson ^{ULT #12}
• Releases flashbulbs to aid others' visibility in ocean depths ^U2#2
• Uses a precise laser into Hulk's eye to directly shock a portion of the Hulk's brain that transforms him back into Banner, notably doing this in a beta armor that was not equipped with armaments ^{UH #2}
• Releases spent shell casings to detonate approaching missiles on his tail ^{UAW #3}
• Discreetly fires a shot at Ghost that turns out to be an exotic and trackable radiation that allows him to track Ghost halfway around the world ^{UAW #3-4}

New Ultimates

• With only his gauntlets and boots operation, creates a forcefield that carries away a dangerous device ^{USM #154}
• Releases an EMP that disables every piece of electronics in a 10 mile radius, including Gregory Stark's technology that is superior to Tony's own ^{AvU #6}

Phantom

• Says his armor has two hours of oxygen ^{UCU #14}
• Magnetizes himself in place to stop a train ^{UCI #1}
• When his armor is hacked to self-destruct a fail safe gets him out safely ^{UCI #1-2}
• Uses a laser to cut a hole in glass ^{UCI #2}
• Engages autopilot to return him home when he's knocked unconscious and it does so successfully ^{UCI #2}
• Utilizes a drone that scouts ahead for him until it is shot down ^{UCI #3}

Future Foundation

• Connects cables from his suit to an advanced generator to empower it ^{FF #1}

Hacking

Iron Tech

• Patches Captain America into all U.S. military frequencies even after the Chitauri seize control of the government ^{ULT #11}
• Uses his own nanites to control the Black Widow's, paralyzing her with brain damage and downloading all of the information in her brain ^{U2 #10}
• Uploads data from an alien ship ^{US #4}
• Nanotech processors in his bloodstream allow him to control the Iron Man armor, and Banner theorizes it could be used to cure him of the Hulk ^{UH #1}
• Repurposes his nanites as a cure to Banner's transformations into the Hulk, and uses the nanites in his own blood to communicate with those in Banner's ^{UH #2}
  • He later remotely turns the nanites in Banner's bloodstream off, allowing him to trigger a Hulk transformation ^{UH #4}
• Others seek his nanofleet hoping to cure their own super powers ^{UAW #1}
  • The nanofleet is successful in doing so
• A codeword incapacitates someone using stolen versions of his tech ^UAW#2
• Fires darts into an opposing armor that hacks into it and the servers it is connected to, deleting all Stark property from both while disabling the armor itself -- including its life support systems ^{UAW #3}
• Uses a codeword again to incapacitate someone using a stolen version of his tech, then fires his hacking dart into it ^{UAW #3}
• Discovered an alternate dimension's version of himself, keeping the head in its armor whose completely alien technology is capable of destroying all machinery in its vicinity, something which shut down Stark's own nanofleet violently at first and which he later shielded himself from ^{UAW #4}

Anthony
General Info

• Stark's tumor gives him a nosebleed and thereafter develops its own persona only he can see ^{UCU #9-10}
• The Invisible Woman scans it and determines it's his tumor making a resurgence ^{UCU #10}
• Stark names the tumor Anthony ^{UCU #12}
• Anthony is referred to as a parallel processor capable of interfacing with technology ^{UCU #12}
• Uses Anthony to construct new armor, referring to Anthony as brilliant and that the direct neuron control will increase the new armor's speed and efficiency ^{UCU #18}
• Watches cartoons with Anthony, characterizing him again as a parallel processor and like a second brain, and when Tony is attacked shortly after Anthony begins to load into the Iron Patriot armor before it's cut down ^{UCU #22}
• It turns out that Anthony is in fact an Infinity Gem himself having manifested directly in Tony's brain ^{UCU #26-27}

Technopathy

• The tumor can control a miniature armor and does so as a demonstration of how he can do the same on a larger scale ^{UCU #11}
• Stark names the tumor Anthony, and uses it to hack into The City and construct a giant remote-controlled armor on the spot that battles the Maker while turning The City against him ^{UCU #12}
  • Anthony's giant City-constructed armor does battle with a Giant-Man-serum-infused Hulk before getting destroyed, but Anthony manages to take down The City's defenses in the meanwhile ^{UCU #12}
• Anthony hacks into a nuke to disable it, and Anthony does so within 5 seconds of learning the nuclear codes, piloting the missile harmlessly into the Hudson ^{UCU #14}
• Hacks complicated A.I.to control a swarm of W.A.S.P. drones ^UCU#15-16
  • Commands the W.A.S.P. drones in battle where they destroy War Machine drones ^{UCU#17 & 18}
  • Anthony coordinates the W.A.S.P. drones in combat, taking people out all without any conscious action on Tony's part, and even communicating over radio channels with other individuals ^{UCU #21}
  • Continues coordinating the W.A.S.P.s until they're destroyed, and identifies their destruction as being caused by an energy surge ^{UCU #21}
• Anthony pilots an Iron Man armor to Tony while he is captive so that he can armor up ^{UCU #24}
• Eventually Anthony is capable of suiting Tony up quickly even while ordering in a second armor that Anthony himself pilots ^{UCU #25}
• Anthony is not capable of braking past the Maker's firewalls, but Tony puts him to work tracking the energy signatures of the Infinity Gems ^{UCU #26}

Post-Death

• Survives his death by downloading his brain into the Maker's technology a millisecond before death and clogs up the Maker's systems while monitoring his activity as he frees his allies from prison and constructs himself a new armor that does battle with his Hulkbuster ^{UCU #28-29}
• Capable of reforming his armor when its destroyed when he exists only as a technopathic consciousness ^{UCU #29}
• Hacks the Maker's systems more successfully while inhabiting them as a consciousness ^{UCU #29}
• Gives his team intel on the Maker's systems while piloting an armor that battles him ^{UCU #30}

Misc. Armors

• Phantom - Uses his armor to trace signals ^{UCI #1}
• Iron Patriot - Disables the infrared goggles of soldiers attempting to ambush him ^{UCXM #21}
• Future Foundation - Quickly hacks into the computers of an Atlantean base ^{FF #2}

Armors & Intelligence

Hello Reddit! This is my first post ever on here. My boyfriend has been struggling with an undiagnosed, chronic gastrointestinal/colon related illness for the past 3 years. He’s been to a colorectal surgeon, pain management specialists, he’s had 2 hemorrhoid surgeries, but to no avail. So far we think it could be pudendal neuralgia. I was wondering if any of you all had similar issues or could help diagnose this issue. Thanks in advance!
This is his backstory/history:
In February of 2021, I started running again. I used to play soccer so I have some stamina. To do better at that, though, I stopped drinking as well. I work at a restaurant so I got to a point where I drank every day. Sometimes 2 beers after work and sometimes having 6-8 beverages.
Fast forward to July 2021. At work, I noticed swelling in my rectum. Went to the toilet and had a very painful experience, resulting in what seemed like hemorrhoids. There was pain and swelling outside of my rectum. I had dealt with hemorrhoids before, some ten years ago. The next day, also at work, I got up out of a “Indian position” and pulled something in my right groin. I couldn’t lift my leg anymore. It felt like the muscles were gone. Had a pulsing pain. Still have that. I stayed home from work for a few weeks but got no real improvement for the hemorrhoids or groin issue. Then I decided to see a GI at Borland Grover in Saint Augustine, somewhere in September 2021. At this point the hemorrhoids had returned inwards but were still very uncomfortable and I had a hard time controlling my bowel movements. My groin issue had not improved. The diagnosis then was “small hemorrhoids”. Even though I questioned that my hemorrhoids were small, we went with minor treatment with suppositories but had no improvement. The GI then recommended a flexible sigmoidoscopy, but at that time I was uninsured and I opted out. Since I am from Belgium, and hadn’t been home in years due to Covid, I started researching going back home for a treatment. It would have been cheaper and I would see some family again and all. I ended up only being able to go there in February 2022, due to covid restrictions and lockdowns over there. Before that, in November 2021, I passed out at work and hit on my tailbone on a tile baseboard. I eventually had to go to ER after a few weeks and follow up with a cardiologist because that fall had given me severe dizziness and general malaise. Months later that turned out to be anxiety, probably because of the stress. That anxiety never went away ever since it came. I was barely able to make it on a plane to Belgium, but I did. I did more follow ups there. I saw another GI, and he recommended a laser procedure for the hemorrhoids. He was very optimistic about recovery so I agreed. The procedure happened on February 24th 2022. After the procedure everything got worse. It feels like something happened, something went wrong. I was couch ridden for 8 weeks, incredible pain and discomfort and swelling. There is burning pain, itching, swelling in my rectum. Seems like it started the day from the surgery. I cannot sit, exercise, pick things up off the floor, drive a car etc. I have a really hard time doing my household. I have to sleep on my stomach, resulting in back pain. I stand most of the day, or walk around. I have a great sense of feeling bloated, and swelling in the rectum. Sometimes it feels like there is something in there, sometimes it’s less. When I sit, i feel a burning pain, sometimes also like a knife or nails. The skin around my anus feels tender or sore. I compare it to having sat on a bicycle seat for hours and hours. But that’s how it always feels. Walking or standing is best for me, but with the groin pain, it still causes issues. I can’t lift heavy objects and I have a two year old step son, which are very hard to combine. I had lots of diarrhoea, which made things hardeworse. In October 2022, I saw another GI at Borland Grover. I explained the situation and had a colonoscopy done, during which they banded 4 hemorrhoids. They didn’t see anything wrong, visually. But everything got worse again. Couch ridden for two months again. Even worse pain than the first surgery. I had to take Vicodin every day for a couple weeks but i had to stop doing that because of constipation issues. Now i get constipated weekly. I cannot do my old jobs anymore. Which was general construction (remodels) and waiting tables. I now work 3-4 days a week at the restaurant, but I have a hard time keeping up. I can’t work the sections that I used to work and I am losing my responsibilities after 5 years. Financially I cannot maintain this situation for much longer, and I don’t know how to start applying for other jobs, not knowing what is going on with me physically. I used to be very active. Worked hard and a lot. My main passion is playing drums, I just had to sell those because I cannot play anymore. Next to that I used to run 2-4 times a week, play soccer and do all kinds of DiY projects. I was set to buy and remodel a house, but something like that is impossible for me right now.
Symptoms: RECTAL:

• burning pain, sometimes continuous
• Feeling of a wound in anus/stitches opening up.
• Worse when seated, feels like sitting on something
• Tailbone pain after sitting longer time
• Shooting pain
• Pain after BM
• Sphincter swells and protrudes, push it back in place sometimes.
• Itching
• Skin tags (not anymore)
• Hard time sleeping, Waking up from itching (not anymore)
• Feeling like intestines are going to fall out of my anus. Not just swelling
• Pressure pain sphincter
• Swelling/ bulging/ narrowing of sphincteanal canal
• Air bubbles when ointment is applied
• Difficulty passing gas/ farting / BM
• Feeling of trapped aiblown up balloon like feeling in rectum.
• Pain for hours after BM
• Long and thin stool
• Short nuggy stool
• Blood in stool 6x since January.
• Diarrhoea
• Constipation: huge change in bowel habits
• Sometimes difficult to urinate/ have to milk sometimes. -> no straining
• Hard to control bm
• Painful Coughing, sneezing, laughing, talking loudly, singing.
• Pain while sitting
• Squats, bending over, sitting, running, lifting, sitting on knees, anything downward hurts
• No physical activity
• Haemorrhoids?
• Weakness in general pelvic area
  
• pelvic dysfunction?
  
• Proctogram?
  
• Defecography?
  
• Manometry?
  
• Daflon?
  
• Preparation H?
  
• Any tests for prolapse.
  
• What did we miss?
  

Hip/groin: - dull, present pressure. Pulling like feeling. - Loss of muscle/capacity - Feeling like something is pushing in groin - Feels similar to an old soccer injury - Mostly present when sitting/walking - Gets worse by the end of workweek - Bad balance, can’t walk in small spaces or sideways. - Feeling like leg is being pulled back by rubber band.

• depression/hopelessness
• Restless legs
• Burning soles of feet
  
• activity potential: 2-3/10
  
• MRN imaging?
  
• hard time walking, sitting. I’m only left with laying down and standing up. Both still painful in their own ways. Not able to lift heavy items or move fast.
  

Hello Reddit! This is my first post ever on here. My boyfriend has been struggling with an undiagnosed, chronic gastrointestinal/colon related illness for the past 3 years. He’s been to a colorectal surgeon, pain management specialists, he’s had 2 hemorrhoid surgeries, but to no avail. So far we think it could be pudendal neuralgia. I was wondering if any of you all had similar issues or could help diagnose this issue. Thanks in advance!
Edit: hernia was ruled out by ultrasound
This is his backstory/history:
In February of 2021, I started running again. I used to play soccer so I have some stamina. To do better at that, though, I stopped drinking as well. I work at a restaurant so I got to a point where I drank every day. Sometimes 2 beers after work and sometimes having 6-8 beverages.
Fast forward to July 2021. At work, I noticed swelling in my rectum. Went to the toilet and had a very painful experience, resulting in what seemed like hemorrhoids. There was pain and swelling outside of my rectum. I had dealt with hemorrhoids before, some ten years ago. The next day, also at work, I got up out of a “Indian position” and pulled something in my right groin. I couldn’t lift my leg anymore. It felt like the muscles were gone. Had a pulsing pain. Still have that. I stayed home from work for a few weeks but got no real improvement for the hemorrhoids or groin issue. Then I decided to see a GI at Borland Grover in Saint Augustine, somewhere in September 2021. At this point the hemorrhoids had returned inwards but were still very uncomfortable and I had a hard time controlling my bowel movements. My groin issue had not improved. The diagnosis then was “small hemorrhoids”. Even though I questioned that my hemorrhoids were small, we went with minor treatment with suppositories but had no improvement. The GI then recommended a flexible sigmoidoscopy, but at that time I was uninsured and I opted out. Since I am from Belgium, and hadn’t been home in years due to Covid, I started researching going back home for a treatment. It would have been cheaper and I would see some family again and all. I ended up only being able to go there in February 2022, due to covid restrictions and lockdowns over there. Before that, in November 2021, I passed out at work and hit on my tailbone on a tile baseboard. I eventually had to go to ER after a few weeks and follow up with a cardiologist because that fall had given me severe dizziness and general malaise. Months later that turned out to be anxiety, probably because of the stress. That anxiety never went away ever since it came. I was barely able to make it on a plane to Belgium, but I did. I did more follow ups there. I saw another GI, and he recommended a laser procedure for the hemorrhoids. He was very optimistic about recovery so I agreed. The procedure happened on February 24th 2022. After the procedure everything got worse. It feels like something happened, something went wrong. I was couch ridden for 8 weeks, incredible pain and discomfort and swelling. There is burning pain, itching, swelling in my rectum. Seems like it started the day from the surgery. I cannot sit, exercise, pick things up off the floor, drive a car etc. I have a really hard time doing my household. I have to sleep on my stomach, resulting in back pain. I stand most of the day, or walk around. I have a great sense of feeling bloated, and swelling in the rectum. Sometimes it feels like there is something in there, sometimes it’s less. When I sit, i feel a burning pain, sometimes also like a knife or nails. The skin around my anus feels tender or sore. I compare it to having sat on a bicycle seat for hours and hours. But that’s how it always feels. Walking or standing is best for me, but with the groin pain, it still causes issues. I can’t lift heavy objects and I have a two year old step son, which are very hard to combine. I had lots of diarrhoea, which made things hardeworse. In October 2022, I saw another GI at Borland Grover. I explained the situation and had a colonoscopy done, during which they banded 4 hemorrhoids. They didn’t see anything wrong, visually. But everything got worse again. Couch ridden for two months again. Even worse pain than the first surgery. I had to take Vicodin every day for a couple weeks but i had to stop doing that because of constipation issues. Now i get constipated weekly. I cannot do my old jobs anymore. Which was general construction (remodels) and waiting tables. I now work 3-4 days a week at the restaurant, but I have a hard time keeping up. I can’t work the sections that I used to work and I am losing my responsibilities after 5 years. Financially I cannot maintain this situation for much longer, and I don’t know how to start applying for other jobs, not knowing what is going on with me physically. I used to be very active. Worked hard and a lot. My main passion is playing drums, I just had to sell those because I cannot play anymore. Next to that I used to run 2-4 times a week, play soccer and do all kinds of DiY projects. I was set to buy and remodel a house, but something like that is impossible for me right now.
His symptoms are:
Symptoms: RECTAL:

• burning pain, sometimes continuous
• Feeling of a wound in anus/stitches opening up.
• Worse when seated, feels like sitting on something
• Tailbone pain after sitting longer time
• Shooting pain
• Pain after BM
• Sphincter swells and protrudes, push it back in place sometimes.
• Itching
• Skin tags (not anymore)
• Hard time sleeping, Waking up from itching (not anymore)
• Feeling like intestines are going to fall out of my anus. Not just swelling
• Pressure pain sphincter
• Swelling/ bulging/ narrowing of sphincteanal canal
• Air bubbles when ointment is applied
• Difficulty passing gas/ farting / BM
• Feeling of trapped aiblown up balloon like feeling in rectum.
• Pain for hours after BM
• Long and thin stool
• Short nuggy stool
• Blood in stool 6x since January.
• Diarrhoea
• Constipation: huge change in bowel habits
• Sometimes difficult to urinate/ have to milk sometimes. -> no straining
• Hard to control bm
• Painful Coughing, sneezing, laughing, talking loudly, singing.
• Pain while sitting
• Squats, bending over, sitting, running, lifting, sitting on knees, anything downward hurts
• No physical activity
• Haemorrhoids?
• Weakness in general pelvic area
  
• pelvic dysfunction?
  
• Proctogram?
  
• Defecography?
  
• Manometry?
  
• Daflon?
  
• Preparation H?
  
• Any tests for prolapse.
  
• What did we miss?
  

Hip/groin: - dull, present pressure. Pulling like feeling. - Loss of muscle/capacity - Feeling like something is pushing in groin - Feels similar to an old soccer injury - Mostly present when sitting/walking - Gets worse by the end of workweek - Bad balance, can’t walk in small spaces or sideways. - Feeling like leg is being pulled back by rubber band.

• depression/hopelessness
• Restless legs
• Burning soles of feet
  
• activity potential: 2-3/10
  
• MRN imaging?
  
• hard time walking, sitting. I’m only left with laying down and standing up. Both still painful in their own ways. Not able to lift heavy items or move fast.
  

2013 - Jackson VS AEG Trial Day 70
Katherine and Trent Jackson is in court.
Debbie Rowe Testimony
Jackson cross
Rowe started out being questioned by Deborah Chang, one of Katherine Jackson's attorneys. Much of Rowe's early testimony was explaining the medical conditions Jackson suffered from. Through photos, she explained to the jury what vitiligo & discoid lupus looked like and their effects
Jacksons attorney Deborah Chang resumed cross examination. Chang asked if traffic was better today. "It's Palmdale... it was actually worse today," Rowe responded.
Rowe said you couldn't look at it and say it was lupus. Then Chang showed picture of black male with vitiligo. "The thing with vitiligo, the color can come and go and if you go in the sun you can get sunburn," Rowe explained
Rowe said vitiligo was harder to treat in people with darker skin, and explained that the skin lightening can come and go. She said it became clear that Jackson's vitiligo wasn't going to go away at some point, and it caused him tremendous anxiety. Jackson, in consultation with Dr. Klein, opted to de-pigment all of his skin, Rowe said. Vitiligo was one of the reasons that Jackson sought frequent treatment from Dr. Klein, Rowe said
"For Michael, it came and went for a good period of the time. It was easy to cover with make-up," Rowe testified. "Everybody said he bleached himself, but he didn't," Rowe said.

Rowe: "It's easier to go lighter color and try to match with make-up. It's hard to match dark skin, they don't make good make-up for dark skin"

Rowe said Michael had come to a point it (vitiligo) was going to stay, it wasn't going to get any better. "Each time the pigment disappearead, it got bigger and bigger." She said that caused tremendous anxiety in Michael. Rowe said up until '99 Michael still had issues with it. "Vitiligo is seasonal, it'd come and go. Sometimes it'd be better and sometimes it wouldn't. Rowe said Dr. Klein tried different treatments, ultimately tried to de-pigment. "You can't just slap cream around whenever you want, you need to get your skin checked," Rowe said. That's one of the reasons Michael saw Klein.
Chang then asked about the burns to Jackson's scalp that occurred during the Pepsi commercial shoot. Michael's burn was very serious, Rowe explained.

Rowe: "I didn't want him to feel as hopeless as he felt. We may not be able to make it perfect, but let's see what we can do. He's very shy, so for him to have all of this going on and being in public it was very hard"

Rowe said Michael cried about it, was embarrassed and felt disfigured. He was worried that people would see disfigurement before he would. Chang asked if there was a comparison to elephant man. She said yes. "He didn't really trust anyone at all," Rowe explained
Jackson compared himself to the "Elephant Man," a 19th-century Englishman who became a circus sideshow curiosity because of severe disfigurements, she said. "He was worried that people would see the disease or the disfigurement before they would see him working sometimes," Rowe testified. He also suffered from discoid lupus, which made his skin tissue "mushy," especially on his scalp, she said.
Rowe offered perhaps the most detailed public recital of Jackson's medical ailments, saying he suffered from vitiligo, discoid lupus and keloids from serious burns on his scalp sustained during the 1984 filming of a Pepsi commercial.
Rowe said Michael didn't disclose it to his mother. He wanted her to know that he was okay and that she didn't have to worry about him. Rowe said she and Jackson talked about everything, and that he didn't want to burden his mother with specifics about his conditions
Rowe noted she wasn't a Michael Jackson fan when they met and she told him so. "I apparently have no filter, as my daughter says", she said. Jackson found her honesty refreshing. She began to accompany him to medical appointments to put him at ease, watch out for him.

Chang: "Did you always make him laugh?"
Rowe: "Well, that was our relationship"

Rowe said Michael had a really good sense of humor and they tried to find humor in stuff.

Rowe: "And if he was feeling down I'd do something to take his mind off of it. I apparently have no filter, as my daughter says."
Chang: "Did he appreciate that on you?"
Rowe: "He did, I think he felt refreshed. Because he couldn't do it, he was happy I could"

"As busy as he was, he wasn't the best person to think about and organize and keep track of his medical care", Rowe said. Rowe explained to the jury why Jackson needed two doctors to treat his discoid lupus. She said it needed treatment from a rheumatologist (Dr. Allan Metzger) and a dermatologist, (Dr. Arnold Klein.) Both got extra training in their respective fields.

Rowe: "He knew I'd look after him, I wanted him to see the best physician, would find people who would take care of him"

Rowe said she told Michael he needed to be organized with his medication, get one of those morning/afternoon/evening pill organizers.
Rowe went with Michael to see other physicians. Dr Metzger is an internist and rheumatologist who treats auto-immune diseases, such as lupus .

Chang: "So it takes a dermatologist and rheumatologist to treat discoid lupus?"
Rowe: "Yes"

Rowe said Dr. Metzger was amazing, became Michael's internist. "And he was the best man in our wedding," she said.

Chang: "He was almost phobic about needles"
Rowe: "Oh, he was phobic"
Chang: "And sometimes you'd have to literally hold his hand?"
Rowe: "I always did"

Rowe said Michael wanted her present in all procedures. She said he always had problems with scars on burned scalp.

Chang: "Was Dr. Hoefflin a very prominent plastic surgeon?"
Rowe: "Yes, and very, very good"

Rowe was also complementary of Hoefflin's skills as a plastic surgeon when he first treated Jackson. She then explained that Jackson had keloids, a series of lumpy bumps on his skin that sometimes happen to burn victims. A couple photos were shown. None of the pictures Chang showed Rowe to demonstrate medical conditions were of Jackson. Rowe said keloids are extremely painful. On Jackson, they started "mid-scalp and went back to the crown", she said. Keloid tissue is very hard and dense and it requires regular injections to treat. She said an air gun is used for some of the treatments. "It's horribly painful", Rowe said. She said in some treatments, you can hear the skin popping while the medication is administered.

Chang: "He had painful burn keloids?"
Rowe: "They were keloids, I don't believe there's a difference between burn or a cut. A keloid is a keloid"

Rowe explained there were areas the scars were linear and elevated, other areas looked like skin had been stretched, other it was very thin. Rowe said Asian skin and Black skin are the worse for trauma.

Chang: "And do you know keloids can be very painful?"
Rowe: "They are"

Rowe said keloid tissue is very dense and hard. To get cortisone in, you don't want it to get around the keloid, you want it to get in the area. Cortisone softens the tissue. "You could hear the skin popping when the medication was going in," Rowe said. "It was horribly painful."
After the treatments on Jackson, there wasn't enough skin for plastic surgeon Steven Hoefflin to do a scalp reduction. That's why Jackson had to have an implant placed under his scalp to expand the skin. That was done by Dr. Gordon Sasaki. The aim was to get one keloid to contend with on Jackson's scalp, but it wasn't successful, Rowe said. It fell apart in 1996 or 1997. In the end, the keloids got "even thicker and lumpier", Rowe said another surgery wasn't an option.

Rowe: "He had such significant scarring, he didn't have enough tissue left, there was no skin to stretch (to do reduction plastic surgery). The burn area couldn't grow hair, baldness also grew. He hated it"

That's when they called Dr. Sasaki, around 1993.

Rowe: "What they show here is what happened to Michael. They would put saline every 7-10 days and let it stretch it out"
Chang: "It literally expands, stretches the skin?"
Rowe: "Yes, it was brutally painful. It required pain medication"

"There are time you cut keloids and you end up with a bigger keloid," Rowe said. They wanted to have only 1 linear keloid on Michael's head to deal with. Around 1997, it felt apart. "Because of the lupus it didn't hold down," Rowe said. He had lumpier, bumpier keloids. Rowe said after cortisone shot, sometimes the keloid would go down, sometime it would get worse. Rowe said after cortisone shot, sometimes the keloid would go down, sometimes it would get worse

Chang: "And you saw first hand his fight with pain?"
Rowe: "Yes, I wasn't assigned to help him recover, I took care of him when he came to see Dr. Klein"

Rowe said, crying, that she went with Michael to other procedures out of love, not because she had to. "Because he was my friend, I wanted to make sure he was ok." Rowe began to break down as Chang asked her to describe her helping Jackson during his medical treatments. She said she wanted to make sure her friend was OK, but it wasn't part of her job to accompany him to treatments outside of Klein's office
Rowe developed a pain scale to help measure Michael's pain. She said it was easier to assess the pain that way.

Chang: "At what number he got scared?"
Rowe: "3. I don't know that his pain level went from 3 to 10, I know his fear accelerated because his fear of pain was so bad"
Chang: "When he had pain, did he have cold sweats?"
Rowe: "Yes"
Chang: "Was he pale?"
Rowe: "Yes"

Rowe said it was like a blind migraine, he couldn't see, wasn't performing at that time, he couldn't do anything.

Chang: "Do you agree it was debilitating?"
Rowe: "Yes"
Chang: "And it was real?"
Rowe: "Yes"

She said she saw him in so much pain, he would have cold sweats, grow pale, and couldn't see or think clearly when this happened.

Chang: "He couldn't be creative?"
Rowe: "He couldn't do anything"
Rowe: "I didn't want him to unnecessarily take, you don't take vicodin if you can do it with motrin, for example"

She said they were doing demerol after surgery, then percocet.

Chang: "He had legitimate need for pain medication?"
Rowe: "Yes"
Chang: "You agree Michael wanted to be responsible for pain management?"
Rowe: "Yes. He didn't want to be loopy. When he had pain medication, he didn't go out. We stayed in, because he was slurring"
Chang: "That's not how he wanted to be?"
Rowe: "Correct"
Chang: "Was he a perfectionist?"
Rowe: "Meticulous"
Chang: "Do you agree he did the best he could?"
Rowe: "Yes"

"His biggest problem was that Dr. Klein and Dr. Hoefflin were trying to over-prescribe medication," Rowe opined.

Chang: "Just to be clear, not at the request of Michael?"
Rowe: "Yes . He did not want pain"

She said he had no choice but to deal with the doctors
Rowe said she never saw Jackson "doctor shop" in order to get more pain medications. He was very trusting of doctors and "very loyal" to his own, she said. "He said, 'They take the oath. Do no harm'", Rowe testified
Rowe said Jackson "wanted to be able to focus on his work. She said when he had taken pain medication, they wouldn't go out. Jackson's struggles with pain medications were well-known on his Dangerous tour, Rowe said.

Rowe: "It wasn't a secret. I used to hang out with the dancers and the people who worked with him" Chang asked whether Rowe remembered Paul Gongaware from the Dangerous tour. She did not
Rowe: "After the procedure in '93, Michael went on tour and was doing that part of the tour until Forecast, I met him one time I didn't know who he was. Next time I met Michael in Mexico City and he was a mess"

​

Chang: "He made an announcement to the world he needed to get help?"
Rowe: "Yes"
Chang: "Did you ever hear the name Paul Gongaware?"
Rowe: "I don't know why I know the name"

Rowe said they would not allow her to talk to Forecast. Chang asked if she knew Forecast has been hired by the insurance company. Objection. Chang asked if tours caused Michael extreme stress or anxiety. She said yes.

Chang: "Did he try to hide any drugs from you?"
Rowe: "Not that I know of"

Rowe said she felt Jackson was always open and honest with her
Debbie Rowe was also asked about watching Jackson's shows. She said she would sit on stage so as not to get crushed by the fans. While she wasn't initially a fan of his music, Rowe said Jackson's performances were amazing and she wished everyone had seen 1 of his shows

Rowe: "When I'd go to a concert and I was fortunate enough to be on stage, I'd see him. Michael was my friend before anything else...I'm so freaking lucky. It was just, it was surreal, because I wasn't a fan, I was his friend first. The show was amazing, the dancers were amazing, Michael was so physical when he'd do his performance. He'd still ask 'how did I do, did I do ok?' Really dude, you didn't hear 55,000 people screaming? I think you did ok. It was an athletic event to see him perform"

Rowe said on This Is It Michael wasn't performing, it was just a run-through of what he would do on the show. She spoke of his concerts, which she described as "amazing" and watching them from a seat on stage. "I would see him and I would think, is this Michael Jackson? Michael Jackson was my friend before he was anything else", she said. "I saw him, and I would say, 'Oh my God, I know him' And I would think, 'I'm so flipping lucky'"
Chang showed a timeline of Jackson's accomplishments between 1983 and 2000, when he and Rowe were close friends. Chang had to show the timeline to AEG Live defense attorney Marvin Putnam, who wasn't shown it before court convened today. There was a little bit of bickering, and Rowe told the attorneys, "But sharing is caring"; Putnam was OK with jurors seeing the timeline. While there were a lot of professional accomplishments, Rowe noted that Jackson became a dad during that time period. (It was on the chart)
"Most important, he became a dad," Rowe said.
"The very rich, very poor and the very famous get the worst medical care - very rich: can buy it - very poor: can't afford any - very famous: can't dictate it"
"He trusted what doctors were doing." Rowe said she tried to tell Michael he allowed doctors to control him too much, he should not be submissive
Rowe reiterated that Jackson trusted and respected his doctor. "He was very loyal to his physicians. He always thought doctors would have his best interests at heart", Rowe said. That was true of Metzger, she said. She was also asked whether Jackson tried to dictate his care. Rowe said Michael wouldn't question his doctor's decisions.

Rowe: "When it came to the pain, I wouldn't say it was dictating, it was more begging for relief than anything"

Rowe, clutching a tissue and breaking down at times, described Jackson as being in debilitating pain throughout the nearly 20 years that she knew him. She said her husband trusted his doctors and depended on them to give him proper medications. Jackson wouldn't specifically demand certain medications but had an intense fear of pain caused by procedures to try to repair his scalp, she said. "When it came to the pain ... it was more begging for relief than anything," Rowe said. "He respected doctors so he wouldn't question what they were doing."

Chang: "Was he treated like a cash cow?"
Rowe: "Yes"
Chang: "Was he engaged in doctor shopping?"
Rowe: "No. There may have been, I don't know. I had not really heard about doctor shopping, especially at the degree we have today, back then"

Chang said in 2000 Michael was seeing a lot of doctors. Rowe said he had his doctors in LA. Rowe said she always instructed the nannies to have doctors on standby when they traveled and to keep notes of their treatment
Chang asked if she agreed that Jackson never sought out doctors solely to get drugs. "To my knowledge, no," she responded. Rowe was pretty annoyed with some of Chang's questions, which she said were too general

Chang: "Did he have to search for doctors to give him drugs?"
Rowe: "No"
Chang: "In your opinion, when he saw doctors it was because he needed it?"
Rowe: "That's very general... Not every appointment was 'I have to see a doctor.' It was 'I'm going to have a performance, I need to have collagen'"
Chang: "Would you agree that Michael never sought after doctors just to get medication?"
Rowe: "Not that I know of"

Rowe said she is nosy, so she checked all the medications the doctors gave him
Attorneys talked over each other objecting. "I feel their pain," Rowe said pointing to the jurors
Regarding Hoefflin putting Michael down and not treating him, Rowe said: "I didn't think I saw it, I saw it! I was there, I saw it!" Rowe said that when she worked with Dr. Klein, Michael's vitiligo got progressively worse
Chang then moved into questions about Rowe's relationship with Jackson. She said they'd watch movies together, in person and on the phone. Rowe hadn't seen To Kill a Mockingbird so Jackson called her one time when it was on TV. They didn't know what a word meant, so Rowe said Jackson called up Gregory Peck to answer questions about the film. "Michael was tickled", she said. He was great friends with Gregory Peck," she explained.
Rowe said she would watch movies with Michael all the time. Sometimes they went to the movie theater, even though he had a theater at Neverland. Rowe said when Michael was very contemplative, they went to Forest Lawn (cemetery) over Griffith Park. "Michael loves sculpture," she explained. "I never realized that's a place he could go and it was quiet, and just be himself. It was nice, it was nice," Rowe recalled. She said there wasn't a bunch of people, he could go and hang out. The jury seemed to hang on every word of Rowe's testimony
There were very few places where Jackson could go in public and not be mobbed or noticed, she said. One place where he took Rowe was Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, where they looked at the sculptures and artwork in peace. Jackson's body was kept for several weeks at the cemetery after his death, and he was interred at another Forest Lawn cemetery. Rowe said one way she and Jackson would sneak around was she would pick him up in her Toyota Celica. They went to Tower Records one day. No one noticed them, Rowe said, until Jackson spoke up and asked about a particular artist. Then everyone recognized his voice. Rowe said they had to hide out in the store's bathroom until Jackson's security detail arrived.She said she got in trouble for the trip
Rowe said that when he was feeling depressed, she took him out. There were a lot of impersonators in the 80-90s.

Rowe: "I drive a Celica, really, Michael Jackson in a Celica?"

She said at one time they went to Tower Records without security. She said there were only a few people in there, Michael was looking at CDs.

Rowe: "Then I hear from across the room 'Debbie, do you know this? Then everyone knew who he was, the store was packed in 20 minutes"

Rowe locked herself in the bathroom at Tower Records with Michael and called his security to pick them up. "I got in so much trouble," she recalled

Rowe: "He said you should incorporate horses with your love of animals. He paid for me to go back to school.He helped whoever he could"

​

Rowe: "In concerts, those girls will kill you to get near the stage - fans laughed in the overflow room"

Rowe said security would give watches and rings. Michael would pick a girl to dance with him. "I thought that was so sweet." Chang showed a video of a woman on stage hugging Michael during "You're Not Alone" song. Rowe cried watching it. Chang played a clip of Jackson performing "You Are Not Alone" in Germany. A woman came on stage, clung to Jackson and refused to let go. The jury was in stitches laughing at the woman clinging to Jackson. She gave a leg kick when security took her off stage. Chang also played the music video for "Remember the Time". Rowe pointed out one of Jackson's camels from Neverland was in the video
Rowe asked if Jackson was easily manipulated. "He could be", Rowe replied. Chang asked if it happened when he was scared; Rowe said yes. Rowe told the jury that Jackson had so much adrenaline after shows that he couldn't sleep afterward
Chang asked some questions about Jackson received propofol to help him sleep in Munich, Germany on the HIStory tour. Rowe was asked more questions about the propofol treatment in Germany. She said she was worried it would affect him. She said Jackson was clean, and she was concerned that getting the anesthesia would trigger some sort of relapse. In response to questions from Chang, Rowe said the German doctors brought their equipment in through the hotel's front door. Chang was trying to make the point that Jackson's propofol treatment in that instance wasn't totally hidden
"He had difficulty to sleep anywhere, it wasn't just a tour problem," Rowe said. Rowe: "I'd see him go 4 days without sleep because he was thinking of a song or a project he wanted to do."

Chang: "Fournier never gave Michael anesthesia for just sleep, right?"
Rowe: "Correct"

Around 1997, near the end of tour, he uses Propofol to sleep in Munich.

Chang: "Michael never sought out an anesthesiologist just for the purpose to sleep prior to that, correct?"
Rowe: "Yes. After HIStory he couldn't sleep, he talked to me and I said he had to talk to Metzger"

Chang asked about the conversation Rowe and Michael had with Dr. Metzger about him not sleeping while in Germany. There were 2 anesthesiologists that came over, Rowe said. They brought in a heart monitor and equipment to the hotel, didn't hide anything.

Chang: "Based on your observations, he never asked for medication to sleep?"
Rowe: "Not that I knew of. I discussed with, I can assume that Dr. Metzger had a discussion with these doctors about what they were going to do"
Chang: "Outside the US, do they use Propofol to treat insomnia?"
Rowe: "It was Diprivan. Metzger had a conversation with Michael. Apparently it was decided these doctors were going to give him anesthesia to put him to sleep 8 hrs"

Rowe said she spoke with the doctors to make sure she knew what they were doing. The doctors spoke English.

Rowe: "I spoke to Metzger to make sure it was the same medication. I knew they were anesthesiologists, they had a practice in Munich. I don't know if they had gone to hotels to do this"

In 1996, the law prohibited the use of any anesthesia outside a surgical center

Chang: "You would not allow any illegal procedure in the hotel room, correct?"
Rowe: "Yes. Not knowing"

Rowe said the doctors had a physicians desk reference book with them. They told Michael there was risk, including death.

Rowe: "My fear in addition to harm, it was because he was clean, this was after he went to rehab. I didn't want anything they were giving him to affect his addiction to demerol"

Rowe said doctors were very detailed and kept medical records. If she didn't feel comfortable, she wouldn't have allowed treatment to take place. This was 5 months after Prince was born, Rowe recalled. "They told me that anything more than 4 hours they had 2 physicians." It took some planing to put the equipment together, Rowe said.

Chang: "Did he ever say bring the equipment in the dark in the middle of the night through an alley?"
Rowe: "He came through the front door"
Chang: "And secutity brought them up?"
Rowe: "I don't believe anyone ever come up without security. The doctors were there on 2 occasions, with all the same equipment. Sometimes Michael would get IV for dehydration after shows"
Chang: "He used IVs for fluids, vitamins while on tour, right?"
Rowe: "Yes"
Chang: "Based on your observations on that tour, Mr. Jackson wasn't asking for medication to get high?"
Rowe: "No. He didn't like being high"
Chang: "During the 20 years you were friends no habit of diprivan or any anesthesia to sleep?"
Rowe: "Not that I know"

Rowe was then asked about her children with Jackson. She said he was devastated after his divorce from Lisa Marie Presley. She said she asked Jackson why, and he mentioned that he didn't have children. Rowe said she told her friend that he could still be a father. Rowe said she told Jackson, "Let me have a baby with you. You can have the joy of being a parent", Jackson thought about it for a couple of weeks before agreeing to have a child with her.

Chang: "Did you have discussions he wanted to be a father?"
Rowe: "He loved kids, he did. He was devastated after the divorce, I was trying to help. What does make you the happiest? 'I want to be a father' he said"

Rowe said she told him he could still be a father. They talked about it and then... it happened. By that time, she and Jackson had been friends for more than a decade, with Rowe holding the singer's hand as he received injections for numerous medical procedures and talking with him several times a week. "I wanted him to be a father," she said. "I wanted him to have everything he didn't have growing up. I wanted him to experience it with his own child, with his own children."
Chang then showed a photo of Jackson, in makeup for his short film "Ghosts" riding on the back of her Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Rowe said she told Jackson and he was so excited, he ran onto the tarmac of the airport where they were filming "Ghosts". Chang showed Rowe and Michael on a Harley motorcycle, he had make-up on. He always had crews with him to document stuff, Rowe said. She took him for a ride and took him to a tarmac and said I need to talk to you. "I said you're going to be a dad," Rowe said, sobbing. "He was so excited, he ran out in the tarmac screaming." Chang asked if he bought all the books around. Rowe said he was a big reader anyway. "He wanted to be the best dad he could be" she recalled. Rowe said she asked Michael to make two cassettes for Prince, she wanted the baby to hear his voice. "I had a headset over my stomach so baby could hear him, so the baby knows who you are," Rowe described. "They knew his voice." Chang showed pictures of Dr. Metzger and Rowe/Michael in Sydney during the wedding. "He was amazing," Rowe said about Michael as a father. Rowe told Michael Paris was going to have him around her little finger.

Rowe: "Before anybody knew I was pregnant with this baby, he was shopping for clothes, would donate some times. I was pregnant, he was picking clothes for his own children"
Chang: "Did you make a decision to leave the children with Michael?"
Rowe: "Yes"
Chang: "Ever regretted it?"
Rowe: "No. Michael wanted to be a father. I didn't sign on to be a mom. I loved him very much, and I still do. I wanted him to be a father, to have everything he didn't have growing up, to experience it with this own children"
Chang: "To have a full childhood?"
Rowe: "Yes"
Chang: "Did you think Michael would be a good father?"
Rowe: "I never questioned that he wouldn't be"
Chang: "Do you still love them?"
Rowe: "I'm so proud of them"

Rowe never elaborated on how they pursued conception
Rowe said Michael was equally over the moon when he learned that Paris was on the way. "I told him, 'You're going to be so whipped,'" Rowe testified. She agreed with Katherine's lawyer that she "never" would have left the kids with Michael if she thought he was "a drug addict."
Chang showed several pictures of Jackson's oldest children when they were babies, some with the four of them together.
Chang asked how Michael looked in the This Is It movie. "He looked horrible," she responded. Rowe learned about Michael's death on the radio, she was driving home.
Rowe was then asked about her relationship with Prince and Paris. She said she was closer to Paris than Prince
Rowe said she saw Prince at least once after Michael died. "We don't hate each other," she said. But she's closer to Paris. Rowe said at the end of March/April started seeing Paris, talked on the phone every day. "She stayed weekends with me," Rowe testified
Asked about her relationship with 16-year-old Prince, who attends a private high school in the San Fernando Valley, she shrugged. "We don't hate each other, if that's what you mean," she said. "I'm closer to my daughter." Rowe, who raises quarter horses in Palmdale, sobbed as she explained how Jackson's death has affected Paris, referring to a June 5th suicide attempt that sent her to the hospital. "I almost lost my daughter", Rowe said, "She is devastated. She tried to kill herself.She doesn't feel like she has a life anymore"
Rowe said before Paris' hospitalization, she and Paris were communicating daily and she was spending weekends at Rowe's ranch. Chang asked how Paris had been affected by their father's death. Rowe broke down and stayed silent for several moments. "Their father is dead" she said in a raspy voice, and then started to mention Jackson's schedule. AEG Live's attorney objected. Rowe covered her face with her hands and the objection was sustained. Chang concluded her examination. Rowe was incredibly upset by this point. The court took a short break before resuming
Judge broke session for a couple of minutes. When a lawyer for Katherine Jackson suggested that Michael's death wasn't something Rowe contemplated when she made the "sacrifice" of giving him full custody of their kids, the former dermatologist's assistant snapped back."My children were never a sacrifice," she said, breaking down to the point that she needed time to compose herself outside the courtroom
AEG redirect
AEG Live attorney Marvin Putnam took over questioning. He was relatively brief
In re-direct, Rowe said Dr. Klein treated Michael for acne, lupus, scaring and vitiligo. Rowe said she wasn't present when Michael had Botox because when she worked at Dr. Klein it had not been FDA approved yet.

Putnam: "Did he use Diprivan for collagen procedure?"
Rowe: "Yes"

Rowe said it was just demerol when collagen was injected around the mouth area. "But when injection was under the eye, it was painful, that's when we started the anesthesia"
He asked Rowe about her concerns that Jackson was coming into Klein's office for more than just collagen treatments. "I didn't understand why he would come in twice in one week", Rowe said.

Putnam: "You were concerned he might be coming in for the drugs?"
Rowe: "Yes"

Rowe said she asked Michael are you here because you really need collagen, or why are you here. "I didn't understand why he would come twice for collagen when he just had it done," Rowe questioned. This was early 90s. She was concerned Michael was coming in for the drugs.

Putnam: "You grew concerned about diprivan intake, approached Klein?"
Rowe: "That was demerol, I called Dr. Metzger, I was concerned about demerol. Dr. Metzger said up disteril, lower demerol"
Putnam: "Did you ask Dr. Klein if Michael was addicted to diprivan because of frequency he was using it?"
Rowe: "Yes. Late 80s, early 90s"

Michael Jackson's ex-wife acknowledged that she was concerned that some of his frequent medical visits were motivated more by a desire for drugs than by the treatments he received. Debbie Rowe testified that she told Jackson about her concerns when he would go to his longtime dermatologist more than once a week in the 1980s and early 1990s."I didn't understand why he would come in twice in one week," Rowe said, adding that she was concerned he might be in search of drugs rather than treatments for blemishes with collagen injections. "I didn't necessarily see what he wanted to have done." Rowe has offered a conflicting portrait of Jackson's medical treatments during her testimony, saying earlier that she never saw him engage in doctor shopping or request specific pain medications. She said many of the visits were legitimately tied to treatments for the skin-lightening condition vitiligo and scars he sustained after being burned during a Pepsi commercial shoot.
Rowe said Michael called her while he was in rehab in England. She said she told him she was working, since normal people worked. She told him he had to stop everything. He said he was working on it.

Putnam: "Including Diprivan?"
Rowe: "Yes, everything"
Putnam: "In 1993?"
Rowe: "Yes"

HIStory tour was 96-97, Munich.

Putnam: "Metzger had Jackson's interest in mind?"
Rowe: "Yes"

Rowe said Dr. Metzger directed her to bring a bag of medication to the Peninsula Hotel for Dr. Forecast. Dr. Klein went to HIStory tour to do collagen touch ups, acne treatment. He gave Michael demerol
Putnam also asked whether Rowe was concerned that Jackson might be addicted to propofol. She said she asked about it, but was told that it wasn't possible to become addicted to propofol. She did say she told Jackson to stop taking all drugs when he was in rehab. "I was told you can't become addicted to diprivan," Rowe testified. She said it was an anesthesia. Before you go to sleep, there's a bit of loss of control, she explained. "I was worried that sensation might trigger an addiction. He was a bit of a control freak, he didn't like to be high," Rowe said.
Rowe: "I was just worried that part of the anesthesia would kick in. I was told you can't become addicted to it.Dr. Metzger wanted to try Xanax and Michael said that hadn't worked. I said you need to talk to each other and let me know what to do"
Putnam asked about Metzger's role in arranging the propofol treatment in Germany. She said the doctors came after she & Jackson talked to the Metzger. The German docs brought lots of monitoring equipment. Metzger initially suggested Jackson take a Xanax pill, but Jackson said he had tried that and it hadn't worked
Putnam asked about the video of Jackson performing in Munich and whether that was before or after the propofol treatment. Rowe didn't know when the video was shot and said she couldn't tell if it was before or after the treatments. "The shows were all the same, just the girls were different," Rowe said. And joked: "Ugh, that sounds so cheap!" Everyone laughed
After the divorce, Rowe never talked to the doctors about Michael's treatment anymore.

Putnam: "After 2000, whatever happened to Mr. Jackson you don't have firsthand knowledge?"
Rowe: "Correct"

Jackson recross

Chang: "When you asked Dr. Klein if anyone could be addicted to diprivan, he said no, correct?"
Rowe: "Yes"
Chang: "Was the bag of medication to wean Michael off demerol before 1993 rehab?"
Rowe: "Yes"
Chang: "Did he do everything he could to be the best?"
Rowe: "He did"

Rowe was excused
Court transcript - Debbie Rowe

For starters I am 30 and severely disabled and will be moving out soon. I do not want to be here. I am looked down upon and I mean that literally, they will look at the ground when I speak. When I speak my father will say "Your voice is driving me nuts". They control my medication and don't give it to me when I ask. They call me a drug addict who has no history of drug addiction. I am prescribed many medications and some are controlled like Vyvanse,Vicodin, lyrics.Sometime they will leave my medicine out for the whole day after I demand my freedom to have my meds and they will do it for 2 days then go back to me having to ask for them. They will scream at me when I ask for my meds saying all I care about is pills and it's all I ask for. THEY make it that way not me. They call me a master manipulator and a liar and that I fake my disabilities to get drugs or so I don't have to work because they think I'm lazy. If I could be more active I would be but sadly it's apart of my diagnoses. I've had MRI of my spine and see pain management and they still say it's made up. I have a plethora of Mental issues and many of which means I am in bed alot. Yet I still find it in myself to see if dad needs help doing something outside if I think it's dangerous. Last week I was called a liar and screamed at and told to live in the streets by dad. Mom said "ooooh I wish you'd stand up to us so I could lunch you through the wall". What was this over? A entire load of bread was gone in a day Well I quit eating bread for ye last 3 months and if I do I eat health nut. They eat regular bread and after being called a manipulator and liar and threatened with assault they talk to each other and dad says well I did have 3 sandwiches, mom says yea and I ate probably a half loaf myself. Did they apologize? Nope they never do. What makes it worse is they DEMAN my EBT card from me and will flip out if I have it so I can get something to drink. Mind you they force me to walk to the store nomatter the weather, last time I oassed out in the road. Same rode my clusins brains were crushed by a car when he did the same. I tell them and they say well maybe you shouldn't have taken the card and It wouldn't have happened. Also I have like stage 3 of 4 of baretts esophagus and usually the next step is cancer. I throw up upwards to 10 times a day and I get yelled at for throwing up, yet another part of my disabilities. They make me do all inside chores whenever I have lived here, in the past it was me and mom doing 50/50 and dad does nothing inside. But since I am back and my conditions are worse by like % 500 they make me do everything by myself and will scream and belittle me if I don't. I cook about 3 hours a day for them and I have to take them their plates. That's the only time when they are nice is when they are eating my food, I always a cook for 10 years and damn good at it. I want to mention how bad it is to do these things. Durinball of it I have severe depersonalization and I don't feel in control of my own body " yes I have schizofrenia". And my spine is sobad I have to sit down ever 5 minutes to take the pressurenoff my alone because it's so bad my legs go weak andnfeels like I have a dump truck on my lower back and it's so painful. Also lastly I'd like to add that most of my schizofrenia when it was really new was me talking to myself. My parents did many things against me underbthe guize of caring but whatnit was was them wanting me to be out oftheir hair. Once they called 911 and fabricated a story about me throwing stuff "I dropped a spoon" they said you better not have grown that spoon! I ran and went into my room and locked the door, well they broke it down and oushesnme into a corner and I tried to slip away. I managed to slip away and sat outside to meditate. Well I when police showed up with ambulance the cop went inside to talk to them. My parents said he manipulated him into talking whig I don't believe. Well dad said I threatened him. So I told ambulance driver I'm in no obligation to stay here and you have no autorityto keep me sitting here. I walked about id say a football field away to the stop sign at that point I walked back. 5 cop cars pulled up on me guns drawn telling me to do 5 different things at once. I put my arms up and he said move amd I'll shoot you. Well the main cop came at me and 3 behind me and one just was old AF standing there. He switched to his taser and I took one steo back because either was scared. They doglike me and the cop begins to taze me till my skin turned black and my face looked like Jim Carrey's in the mask. I had 8 charges on me for that day. They have done this twice. And forced me to go to hospital 7 times after I've already been to hospitals about 5 times the months prior through them coercing me, I was in jail 4 months and went pretty insane and attempted to hang myself and would harm myself. Charges were dropped and they let me go but only because I was calling lawyers. They denied me showers and no phone calls the entire time they kept me in solitary. One time I went to hospital because my mom said we were going in town together burher king which is my favorite. We pull into the ER entrance and I'm literally trying to break the window to get out. Yes all this for just talking to myself" I deal with spirits". Anyways there's 3 doctors waiting for me and many nurses all male, the hospital director and 3 cops. It took every 3 of them to get me in the room they kidnapped me in and I even broke out of the restraints. So the cops came in and chomed me with their bare hands as I scream raype. So yes I lost a good 2 years of my life from my parents forcing me into hospitals and lying to get me into jail. So now I am pretty much approved for SSI and I will not be allowing them control of my meds and will be opening up lawsuits"they said I can stay with them if I don't sue hospitals and cops" I will be taking control over my food stamps and they won't be eating using my benefits ever again. Hopefully I can find a place within a mo th but I should get enough backpay to buy myself maybe a van with enough room for a bed to fit and I'll live on streets again. I deserve better. TLDR I'm sure.

UPDATE: STEP 2 -4 of my plan is almost complete everything is going smooth for my depart for next Saturday .... Also I appreciate whoever tried to talk but I'm literally okay I'm doing this and not a single person can change my mind .
Please don't reach out and ask if I'm okay I'm not . I'm never going to be . I just want to get this off my mind for now cause I've been planning my suicide out almost all day and I'm not looking for attention so please don't message me . Today I've been figuring out everything I need to do before next Saturday. I've know that by then I'll finally be able to be at peace . I'm just tired . I've had a rough childhood I was locked at when I was 12 and raped when I was in placement. I never told anyone what happened when I was locked up but it stayed with me . From then it was difficult to feel like a normal kid . Therapy and medication didn't help. When I turned 15 my mother passed away. That fucked me up even more . I dropped out of highschool my senior year halfway through the year mainly cause both of my ex's were fighting with each other and was a lot of drama I also didn't have anyone else to help me . I was going to school and working till 12 everyday and when I would finally get home I was trying to game competitively. I also was flipping bud so I didn't have a second to think .my house got robbed when I was at school and I quit my job and school and just withdrew from everything. I had one of the worst breakdowns of my life at that point in my life. I eventually just sedated myself with weed untill I didn't feel much of anything. I started working again about year later. I met my first love and we dated for 7 years .during those year I ended up doing Vicodin which lead to Percocet which I graduated to heroin/Fetty. I was considered dead 2 times and kept doing heroin untill we broke up . I moved to Hoboken NJ which lead me to relapse because heroin was so cheap basically I can get a bag of dope for 2-3 dollars which was cheaper then cigarettes and bud . I eventually got kicked out of the apartment I was staying at . Got locked up in jail after that for possession with intent to deliver. So I got clean of dope and it's been 6 years since I touched the shit. So felony on my record can't get a job I have 2 beautiful kids I'm forbidden from ever seeing . I've can literally go on all fucking day about my downhill shit show avalanche of fucked up events that make up my life but it's tiresome. I just can't do this anymore the person I love and have a child with abandoned me 6 months ago completely ghosted me after 3 and a half years together . We were homeless we had came up and ran away together and I never fell for anyone that hard not even the person I was with for 7 years . They were my best friend and I thought I had someone who understands how I feel and wouldn't hurt me someone who wouldn't betray me like everyone has before I took care them and I was vulnerable to that person on a level I haven't ever been we eventually decided to have a child . We have a magnificent son named Cardinal . I'm leaving everything I have which isn't much to him . The way I figured. Me going through with this is actually a good thing for everyone . He won't ever know who I am because the other parent my ex made sure of that . It doesn't matter tho because I'm not worth anything to this world or society in general I'm a mentally disabled drug addict with nothing of any sort that benefits our planet or future as a species. I'm like a parasite or lech that does nothing to improve the planet or anyone's life I'm a literal weight on our planets future and society. The world will be much much better off with out me holding it back. I just can't take the stress of life 30 years of bullshit constantly getting fucking hurt emotionally and betrayed and lied to . I don't have it in me to become a soulless inhuman monster that ends up shooting up a school I couldn't imagine ever being bitter that way I love people and I like to be nice to people . However the world has something against me .I justed wanted a family and a friend I can be goofy and weird (good wierd) with. I wonder what happens when we die . The though doesn't frighten me nearly as much as when I was 7 years old . Look I'm okay with this . I'm going to be at peace when I finally go through with it. I decided to take a painless route and aquired 10 bags of premium heroin. Next Saturday after I know my life insurance policy is squared away and that my son will have a future I'm going through with it . I also decided I don't want anyone to find me this way so I decided I'm going to go near some sort of dock or marina that way when I do the heroin and fallout . I'll fallout into the water and drown and hopefully not be found . There is one more thing . I'm not in good health anyway I'm on the verge of renal disease and my body is failing so this is inevitable regardless of my choice to take my own life . I wish everyone I care about understands and to the person who broke my heart and mind . I don't hold anything you've done in betrayal. In fact I still love you . This is it. Goodbye

A genius doctor comes back from the grave to help rid his best friend of cancer, smashes his car into the dean of a hospitals home, gets laid, breaks up with her, goes to rehab, only to take more vicodin, witnesses one of his colleagues suicide, revives his best friends girlfriends life while preventing a bus accident from happening, one by one rehires a classroom full of doctors only to fire them, gets his guitar back, gets his original team back, almost goes to jail due to his drug problem but wins by sticking a thermometer in a detectives rectum, saves both Foreman and thus a cops life by not having Baby Shoes shoot him, gets laid again only to push his ex wife and her husband's case away to tell a group of students how his leg happened and then reverts to explaining 3 other inadequate cases, makes a billionaire comeback just to leave with his million dollars off of a missed opportunity, and gets hired to Princeton Plainsboro in a dual degree in nephrology and infectious diseases.

No matter what I do, I cannot escape the thoughts of wanting to get high. I can’t enjoy anything without thinking “___ would be nice right now”. I use to dabble in drugs as a early teen but I’d always have panic attacks or constant crying when I was high and coming down so I never enjoyed it. It all changed once I started taking Prozac. Getting high was easier but I still enjoyed a clear sober mind. But then this past April.. I played around too much with drugs and decided to shoot up meth. I only ever shot it up twice and it was that same day. But ever since then I’ve been hooked on getting high. It was the most orgasmic experience and now I chase any drug to fulfill that high. I’m high right now off of weed and ecstasy. I’m starting to play around with opioids and took a Vicodin last night which took me to a new heaven away from stimulants. Now I am wanting more. I’m scared. I was just homeless this past summer when I spiraled out into a meth, weed, and Xanax binge. I was so blacked out I don’t even remember the whole month of June. And I was miserable couch hopping and staying in homeless shelters. But I loved getting high. So I’m terrified because I got housing around mid July and here I am in September already trying acid for the first time, smoking weed everyday again, popping Xanax occasionally and pills occasionally. Everything spiraled out of control once I got robbed at work on August 31st. I smoked weed occasionally but I was focused on college and my job. Since I was robbed and at gun point, I’ve quit my job and now with the free time on my hands im not doing good and the trauma from the incident replays in my head every time I’m out in public. I’m typing like this because I’m obviously tweaking on this ecstasy while I grind my teeth making me hyper focused. Moral of this pathetic story is that I’m scared and don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. I can’t stay sober. I crave being high and put myself in dangerous positions for it. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m losing friends, because no one wants to talk to a person who is high all the time. My therapist is honestly giving up on me and told me I’m just doing it to myself. There’s no hope if I can’t stop. And my mind is so disoriented I’m obsessed with the show Euphoria and want to be like Rue Bennett. I’m obsessed with my ex girlfriend who I only dated for 2 weeks back in June when I was homeless and blacked out high. She’s always in my head and whatever she says or tells me to do I do it. I love pleasing her. I’ve only ever cried over her while my life turned to shit. I’m started seeing her again yesterday. I can’t get her out of my head. I’m losing my sanity.. just 2 weekends ago I tried cutting myself as deep as I could. I’m just ready to go. For the first time ever I felt at peace when the blood poured. Usually I panic but when I cut myself the last time, I was in love with it and craved death.

From "The Mojo" (11/25/2017)
​
Villains’ opening lyric is a statement of fact: “I was born in the desert, May 17, ’73.” What impact did your place of arrival have on the subsequent journey?
​
JH: I suppose everything. It impacted me heavily because of the lack of outside influence. And the enormity of space. The scene that I walked into was created by a guy named Mario Lalli, who we called Boomer. It was his ethos that ruled the roost. He had this extremely open mind. He listened to Zappa, Deep Purple and Black Flag, and classical music: “That’s all wonderful – what could be wrong with that?”
​
How did you meet him?
​
JH: I was into punk rock music, and he’d have these parties at his house. Looking back on it now, there’d be 13-year-old people – me – and 40-year-old people. Which is kinda gross, ultimately, perhaps, but in that time frame it was totally fine. Because it’s a gang of individuals and outsiders.
​
Did many touring bands visit the desert?
​
JH: Never. Billy Idol played and he slept with my friend’s sister and I just thought that was the greatest thing of all time. Tommy Tutone came – he had this great song, 867-5309/Jenny, that I thought of as this renegade version of pop. Then Black Flag played the desert. So they brought it into our yard. That SST mentality: “Go on, be yourself.” That’s what Boomer preached – without preaching. He more lived that way.
​
Growing up, was music in your household?
​
JH: Members of my family play instruments. They were always my heroes. I wanted to be like my grandpa. He had a horse and a gun, and my grandma was a talented painter, thinker and played music. They had a ranch in the middle of the desert. I remember watching my grandma paint, and as soon as she finished one she put it down and started the next one. No one ever played in front of each other. Maybe that’s the Norwegian part of us. So I just played in my room. I didn’t go running through the hallways screaming, “I have music!”
​
What records did you listen to?
​
JH: We used to take these long drives in the summertime. This was the time of cassettes, they just flipped and kept going. And perhaps it was in the background for my parents as they were driving, but it started to sink in deep. I listened to a lot of Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, a lot of The Doors... and a lot of Jackson Browne. One album called Running On Empty, I used to stare at the cover. It’s just a road going to nowhere and there are songs about the road, recorded on the road... I wonder, what did that do to me? It speaks to the loneliness. There’s a huge lonely side to what we do.
​
Were you lonely growing up in the desert?
​
JH: I never thought so. But boy, was there all this free time to be alone. I think of boredom as a gift. Because when you’re so bored you just have to do something.
​
You formed your first band very young.
​
JH: I was 11, 12. We were called Autocracy. We just played in garages and made flyers and stuff. That seemed great. Then Katzenjammer formed, which turned into Kyuss. I was really into the Misfits. Really into GBH and The Exploited and the English Subhumans. But then something wonderful happened – people hated us. In the dez, people didn’t boo you, they did nothing. You finish a song – nothing. Nothing. It affected me. “OK I should be inspired by that, inspired to find who I am.” I was tuning down because I’d never heard anyone tuning down, and we didn’t have tuners. Also, in the desert, with no bounce-back, when the sound just goes – it was big, right away. Then, what if you use bass amps...? What if you do things wrong on purpose? The sound was important.
​
Why did you leave Kyuss?
​
JH: It became clear we were part of creating a scene. And I didn’t want it to go south – I loved it so much. I thought we had maybe painted ourselves into a corner. I wasn’t angry no more, I was chasing girls... Also I had melodies that John, our singer, couldn’t get to. I didn’t want to sing, but I felt the ceiling. I thought, “We’ve accidentally got something – don’t ride it into the ground. Blow it up! Destroy it! It’ll live forever.”
​
Your next move is joining Screaming Trees as auxiliary guitarist.
​
JH: I was a bit disillusioned with music. I moved to Seattle ’cos my brother and his husband were living there and I wanted to be around them. My friend Mike Johnson from Dinosaur Jr, who Kyuss had toured with – I used to call him ‘Downer Mike’, ’cos he was always bummed out – I used to go to his house, we’d both drink, and he had this amazing record collection. The Trees asked him to play guitar but because he’s Downer Mike he was like, “No... but Josh could do it.’’ I didn’t really know the Trees’ music that well. I knew Nearly Lost You and that’s about it. I knew I loved [Mark] Lanegan’s voice, just from that song, I knew his thing was special. And I knew they notoriously hated each other. But I also did not know what it was like to be a hired gun and to make someone happy. I wanted to make them incapable of saying anything other than, “Hey thanks, man.” I was just gonna do one Lollapalooza tour. And it turned into two years.
​
What did you gain from that experience?
​
JH: I got along with each of them individually, and they did not get along with themselves. They had trouble communicating, which I didn’t have. They had trouble listening to each other, which I didn’t have. I got along with Lanegan, who was in a very interesting state at that time.
​
Lanegan described that band as: “Like prison. Without the sex.”
​
JH: Hahahaha! But see, that’s why I had no choice... All I wanted to do was listen to comments like that. I don’t mind if it’s awful, so long as we can giggle. The rowboat to hell can be wonderful ’til you reach the destination. Lanegan and I were inseparable. We understood each other. And didn’t judge each other. ’Cos I don’t know what anyone else should do, and I never have. I thought, “He’s an individual. He’s got troubles. He shouldn’t probably do that, but he’s an adult, what the fuck am I doing?”
​
But eventually you quit.
​
JH: It was time for me to do what I needed to do. I tried to find a guy who could sing and play an instrument. The first incarnation of [QOTSA] was actually John McBain, from Monster Magnet, who’s a very peculiar person. He basically does crosswords and says “No”. Which I found fascinating, his disdain for humanity. There was a kid named Jason Albertini who I just called The Kid. He had to talk to his mum to let him rehearse. He was a virtuoso. But he didn’t talk, he just ate rice and jogged. So he was weird. And then Matt Cameron on drums, and Mike Johnson played bass. We played a gig, I can’t remember if it was good or bad. I was going to make a record, but I realised I had a singular idea and I was asking for people to muddle it.
​
What was your singular idea?
​
JH: I wanted to see what it was like when you just played one thing until you got lost in a trance. One note is so much more difficult than 50. That’s what I learned in the Trees, because I was playing rhythm, I was trying to play like [AC/DC’s] Malcolm Young, trying to play that riff like a robot. So I had the first Queens record written, this robotic trance stuff, and then my friend Hutch, our sound man, who has turned me on to so much music, was like, Cough... and plays me Can, Neu!, Wire... I was like, “What?!” Really disheartened.
​
On the debut QOTSA album, the music doesn’t seem compelled by the words. It’s like they’re an afterthought...
​
JH: I did not want to sing but I did not want to tell someone what to do, so I was forced to do what I wanted to hear. I was very conservative. As luck would have it, I was dating a crazy person. So there were songs like You Can’t Quit Me and they were very real, but they were the least words I could say to get it across. I wrote a lot of lyrics in Kyuss but they weren’t always very good. To this day I find lyrics difficult. But I wanted to talk about how outside I felt, so I found this weird character that made me feel safe. I called it ‘The Cad’ – and The Cad is in You Would Know and Walkin’ On The Sidewalks, and I can track it all the way up to [2013’s] Smooth Sailing. I can track that Cad.
​
From doing the first album practically on your own, you make Rated R with a shifting troupe of guests and accomplices.
​
JH: That was the idea. I did this Desert Sessions stuff, and I didn’t have a band so I had to come up with a way to convince people to play with me and also not have their bands be outraged. Like – Fuck me tonight, then go back, I don’t care. No commitment, it’s just about music. So I opened a brothel, in the middle of nowhere, and that seemed to be exciting for other people... It was totally normal for me.
​
It feels like your quantum leap.
​
JH: Not to me. I thought the first record should be singular and it’ll announce I Are This. The second one will fan out its wingspan, and the third one will answer everything. And so Rated R was like, I guess all bets are off. I’d heard that Paul McCartney and George Martin had taken a speaker to use as a microphone – so what if you take two speakers and put a microphone on omni in the middle? That’s an extremely important sound on Rated R for guitar and bass. I was a bit like Dr Frankenstein but shooting the injections on myself. I was up late a lot... (laughs). There’s still the robotic skeleton inside Rated R, but I wanted to dance, I wanted to groove, I wanted there to be girls, I wanted it to be hedonistic. I liked this rogue cast. Also, I knew I didn’t want to sing, so I was like, “What if we had three singers?” Nick had a cool voice, Lanegan did too... I wanted it to feel like monsters coming over the horizon – “Ohmigod, there they come!”
​
You built a piratical fantasy world – yet “Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol” was also your reality. Was it as wild as it appeared from the outside?
​
JH: It was way worse. It was dangerous. It was... stupefying. Stupid-defying. (Laughs) And I was proud of it. And I knew that it would meet a wall. Because it had no choice. You cannot harness chaos. You can touch it and die, or touch it and live.
​
At what point did it meet that wall?
​
JH: When the money showed up. I want to be there for my people that I’m close to, ’cos that’s all you have, right? Your family, your friends. But sometimes I realise I’ve enabled people to go longer. When the money’s there, you stop communicating. Everyone I’ve let go should have been let go probably two years before. And I desperately tried to hang on to them.
​
Presumably you’re alluding to Nick [Oliveri]’s departure?
​
JH: Yeah, and Mark’s too. Mark was not gonna live much longer. Nick was doing things that had nothing to do with music. And I love Nick so much, so I won’t say what they are. I once did and it hurt too much. The only judgement call I really can make is what I’m willing to live with. I don’t tell people how to be – this is about shepherding the weird.
​
Queens Of The Stone Age circa Songs For The Deaf was a monstrous live band – Dave Grohl ran away from the Foo Fighters to play drums for you.
​
JH: I never expected him to stay, because it was the nature of our band to eat the heart, and leave the rest. In a beautiful way. We were there to seize moments. If I hadn’t let Nick go, I would have broke up the band after that record anyway and started a new one. But then when I let Nick go, it was like, “You can’t make it without him.” Are you kidding me?! I don’t think anyone in the moment listened to our next record [Lullabies To Paralyze, 2005], because they had made decisions. It was ‘pick a side’ for a moment. I kept my mouth shut but other people didn’t, so I had no way to say, “You have no idea.” I fired my friend – could you do that? I went to his house and looked him in the face. I was doing what I was raised to do, in the manner I was raised to do it. So I wrote a Brothers Grimm fairytale as a response, saying, “You go ahead and have your witch trial...” I’ve always put so much into the records and I put so much into that one. I honestly thought I had the musical answer. I was wrong (laughs). I don’t think people got it at all.
​
You get married in the same year Lullabies is released, and then in 2006 your first child is born. What was the impact?
​
JH: The birth of my daughter really saved me. Meeting Brody saved me too. Because I’d cut my tether, and Brody was a grounding for me. I like to see how far things go. To agitate has always been my thing. At that point in my life I was actually well beyond the edge, but still looking for it. I think it’s very possible it could have been a very stereotypical story: ‘Band with promise flames out.’ I am so very blessed to have met someone that can spit 30 feet and punch like a guy and has a really strong brain like Brody.
​
You’ve referred to ...Like Clockwork’s mood as “broken”, following your hospitalisation during 2010, and complications after knee surgery. What exactly happened?
​
JH: It wasn’t knee surgery – I’ll put it at that. I never said there was a knee surgery. It may have been our publicist. I don’t like talking about how I got there. I got there. And it wasn’t the surgery that fucked me up, it was afterwards because I was committed to a bed, I couldn’t move, and I was contagious. For three months I couldn’t touch anybody. My daughter was young and I had to yell to keep her away. By the end of that, I wasn’t very happy. I was desperate for another story to tell about that record. But lyrically the records are a diary of a lifetime. So they have to be real or I’m out. Also, the guys were wanting to do a record and I did not. It was actually Brody – she just talked to me. I imagine I was not the greatest person to be around, so she was like, “Please go out in the garage and play some music...!” I came back in with The Vampyre Of Time And Memory and said, “Nobody will ever want to hear this.” One thing I know for sure is that of all the different styles of complaint, a successful musician complaining is the worst!
​
It’s not a great look, is it?
​
JH: It’s like you come out of the dressing room of life and go, “Whaddya think?” And someone goes, “Fuck you!” (laughs). It was a difficult record to make. When it was finally done I just called each guy in our band and said, “I’m really sorry, this has a strong chance of being our last record – this is probably not gonna go that well.” ’Cos it was so emotionally different to everything else.
​
Between that record and Villains, you make a fourth Eagles Of Death Metal album and then Iggy Pop’s final album. What role does EODM play in your life?
​
JH: Oh, it’s just as important as Queens. Eagles Of Death Metal is where I put my jeans shorts on and jump in the pool. That’s where you drink during the day, philosophically. Jesse [Hughes] and I have been so close. That notion of just giggling like a retard... ah, which is probably not what you’re supposed to say these days. Sorry man! But that notion of being footloose and fancy free is so pleasurable. I also believe in Jesse. We have such differences and such similarities, but one thing is for sure: he’s born to be a frontman.
​
Were you originally due to have been playing with EODM at the Paris Bataclan on November 13, 2015?
​
JH: I was so adamant about touring with Eagles. And then Brody was pregnant again, so at the last minute I didn’t go to Europe. Everything that happened after [the terror attack] felt a lot like being in a dryer filled with cannonballs. So the Iggy record was really helpful. And then Bowie died. It was a weird time. I remember sitting there with Iggy looking at each other, not needing to say anything.
​
What did you take from the Post Pop Depression experience?
​
JH: It was the coolest thing I’ve ever been allowed to be part of. The conversations I had with Iggy in my car, which I can’t share but they’re all based on how to survive. To make it through. That’s what I need to figure out, so that I do.
​
To what extent is the moodshift on Villains a reaction to the emotional turbulence of the preceding years?
​
JH: When I was younger I almost drowned – and when I got out of the water I remember thinking, “I’m never gonna wait...” So after Bataclan and Iggy, the word ‘now’ just kept pulsing like a heartbeat in glaring lights. This is it – every step is all you get. Take a chance. From top to tail, I’ve always thought of Queens as a dance band.
​
In working with Mark Ronson, were you looking for a new way to be a rock band?
​
JH: Absofuckinglutely. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to understand that he was asking me to be on the Gaga record to bridge the gap. I was like, “Why deny signs along the road? Why not band together and break as many preconceived notions as we can.” It’s that word again – to agitate. It’s flashing again now – agitate now, agitate now.
​
Another word that crops up with regard to you is “driven”.
​
JH: My yardstick for success is all emotional. I used to think that I was hard and absent of that, but I’m not. This is my religion, this is my way of life, this is how I explain to my kids how to be somebody. This is how I show who I am. I want to just get it right. Because I know I’m not gonna be around here as long as other people, y’know? When I’m gone the music will be there for the people that are close to me. I would like to get it right so I feel like I set a high water-mark for our family. For my name.
​
You’ll be around a long while yet, surely?
​
JH: Well... I know what it’s like out here, and you don’t. Also, whenever I’ve had troubles in my life, the work has always pulled me through. My old man works, my grandpa worked, I work. So the work is everything. Being on tour can be difficult, because there’s an element that’s like being a vacuum salesman. You ring a doorbell and it’s like, “Hi!” That’s why I need the shows to be different every night. Because if they’re too similar I could split at any moment. I guess I’m looking for reality.

Story time from the trauma of my childhood. This is one that makes my friends go, "what the actual fuck?"
This all happened in the span of about a year to a year and a half. He found her at the bar. Brought her home and moved her in without saying anything. I was elevenish. Brother was about nine.
At first things were good. She cooked, she cleaned, she helped us with stuff. But then she started stealing pills off the cart at her work (senior home) and mixing them with alcohol. Vicodin and vodka was a big one.
This started a series of events that nobody would ever be able to forget. She was verbally and physically abusive. She caused so many problems the police started showing up. At first it was my dad telling them she wandered off drunk and out of it in the middle of winter and he was concerned. This escalated into her shooting a hole through his bedroom ceiling with his .45...
Fortunately my brother and I were at our grandmas in another town when this happened. Neighbours sent their kids inside and called the police. They showed up, took my dad's gun in as evidence and escorted her off the property. At this point my grandma and aunts told him she stays gone or they're going for custody.
Things settled out for a while. She stayed gone until she didn't. We got back home one day and she was there. Dad told us that our grandma and aunts knew so there was no reason to talk about it. I think you can guess they had no idea.
Well, after a while things started declining even more. At this point my dad decided enough was enough. He told her he wanted her gone. Asked my brother and I what we thought and we agreed she needed to go. She didnt want to leave. After he got her out she broke out his back bedroom door window trying to get in. My brother and I were home foe that one.
We heard the glass break our dad tell us to go into a bedroom and stay there til he called us out. So we went and hunkered down in my bedroom for I dont even know how long. It felt like ages but could have only been seconds. All of a sudden our dad is telling us to open the front door. My brother grabbed the main door and I got the screen door.
Around the corner comes our dad with her, he has her shirt twisted up in one hand, the other hand on her arm guiding her out the door. He pushed her out the door and told her not to come back. Brother and I were escorted back into the house and doors were locked.
To my dad's credit this was his last act of real concern for his kids because he told us we were all sleeping in the living room that night so he could keep an eye on us.
This was the night before my 12th birthday. The morning of my birthday my dad gets us up to do our weekly run up to stay at grandmas for the work week. He went out to warm up the truck and after a few moments I see police lights shining into the house.
I looked at my brother and asked, "Is that the cops? Again?" He peeked out and said yes. At this point we knew the drill. Sit and wait for dad. Only it wasnt dad we waited for. It was the chief of police. He came in to tell us everything was fine. There was a misunderstanding. But dad was running late to work and said the chief could take us to our grandma's. I got to play with the lights in the patrol truck.
We arrive on our grandmas porch escorted by the chief and she immediately looks at me and says, "How long has she been there?" I said I dont know maybe a month or two. Dad said you knew. She didnt know.
Grandma was mad. I can count on one hand the amount of times I saw my grandma really truly angry. That's number one on the list. She has my brother and I go in while she talks with the officer.
Low and behold she accused my dad of attempted rape and assault. I spent years not believing my dad could be capable of that. I hate to say it but after the way he's acted and some of the things he has said I have to wonder if maybe there wasnt some truth behind those accusations. At the very least some coercion was in place I'm sure. The way the trial went was a shit show and a half. I almost got put on the stand.
My dad's lawyer, my grandma, my aunts, and even the judge wanted to avoid that at all costs. If it was necessary they would but I'd they didnt have to they weren't going to. Fortunately the judge threw it out the day before I was supposed to get on the stand.
The judge ended up throwing the case out between lack of evidence and the fact that her and the arresting officer couldnt get it together. My dad spent 2 weeks in jail. She took out a restraining order. My dad ended up not being able to go anywhere alone because she was telling people he was showing up st her house and her friend's houses. Date and time stamped photos if his odometer in his car.
He slept on my grandmas floor for a week and then we went to my aunt's because my grandma needed some space from my dad. After it was all said and done things kind of went back to normal.
We did find out though that the name she gave us didnt match her official ID. And she had several different identities. The ID she had bad the name she gave us but didnt match the other DMV records they had. I've tried finding out what happened to her but nothing ever comes up. She disappeared into thin air. Every once in a while I see somebody that looks like her in public and i can feel my heart drop and I start to sweat.
To this day I will never forget the look on my grandma's face as we showed up to her house. And the scrambling my grandma and aunt and uncle and older cousins did it make sure my birthday wasn't ruined. They made it a good one, despite my dad sitting in jail. I will always appreciate them for the effort they put in to trying to keep things as stable as possible.

I know that this is a long post, so I appologize about journaling but I just need to get this out.
I have been suffering with depression for years now, but I made a substantial progress in the last few years with a therapist that has been awesome to work with. However I feel like over the 4th of July weekend I've lost so much.
I had recently picked up smoking last year but just quit about 2 weeks ago, I work in IT and it was a stressful year at my place of work last year which I'm sure that is nothing strange to many of you. It was particularly worse because I shit you not, my grandfather died on Christmas and I was the one giving him CPR, which I feel I did incorrectly. His heart was only working at 20% capacity so I don't really think it would have mattered, but it is on my conscience despite my family thinking I am the fucking "hero" for trying to save him. I'm not, in that room no one was performing it so I stepped in and did the best that I could from what I remembered from highschool. Best chance he had? Probably, but also that's compared with a room of upset and scared family as opposed to someone who knew what the fuck they were doing. Felt like a few minutes, but it was closer to 15 of me performing CPR (I was still doing 2 breaths every 15 pumps which they don't recommend doing anymore, I am not a doctor check me on that)
I live with my parents, but I pay a pretty good chunk of the bills to help them out since I've been making more money then them and have been sticking with it due to a fear of moving out and as a way to help repay them for helping me years ago when my depression was really bad, had an opiate problem I developed taking pain meds after a bad accident from 12 years ago which I used to cope. I don't know if it matters but it was my fault, I fell asleep at the wheel, crossed the center line and hit a semi. It was stupid, but I was so suicidal I didn't care.
I quit vicodin/kratom about 7 years ago and had been doing pretty well. I had several issues along the way due to working a job I hated, but when I got into IT my life turned around. I had a very resonable income working with something I felt was just like a hobby before. I've been wanting to work through the Comptia line of certs and maybe go into ethical hacking because I picked it up recently and love it. My therapist has really helped me develope better coping mechanisms for stress when I had like 0 before.
I also had a lot of issues with my biological father who was diagnosed with Narcistic Personality Disorder and was abusive to my mother and gaslit the living shit out of my sister and I. Claimed he never hit my mother and had recordings of her saying she lied to get more money out of the divorce, these recordings don't exist and everyone of his brothers and sisters (7 of them) and my mother's family confirm they had seen him beat her on multiple occasions. My mother only took a 92' pontiac grand am from the marriage to leave and he got married in 4 months, put his business in his new wife's name while only getting paid "minimum wage" from a business that has his name in the title for "tax reasons"... It was a scam to pay the least in child support he legally had to. He sold it not to long ago for 7 figures and I know this because he wouldn't shut his damn mouth about, (see the NPD diagnosis)
This isn't about him, I've cut him completely out of my life years ago and that also helped my journey to improving myself. This is about my step-dad.
Up to this point, my step dad seemed like an inperfect but loving and caring father that was there for me and my sister. He is extremely conservative, as in radically conservative so he and I have had our tiffs but it never was physical excluding one event when I was 16 in which he threw a soup can at my head and then pushed me down the stairs. But that seemed like an isolated event which wasn't right, he never apologized for and has been many years and I had forgiven him. That about covers the back story.
He has been becoming increasingly paranoid over the last 2 years with Biden in the office (I'm a socialist democrat so I don't think he's rational). We have always been a house with firearms as he went to school for gunsmithing and while I'm strongly in favor of tighter gun regulation, I'm a gun owner myself and did trap shooting in college even. Guns are for sport in my eyes, I hate the thought of them as weapons. But as of late he's been hiding loaded firearms around the house and since the school shooting event in Texas he believes that the police have no interest in protecting us. Even as a social democrat, I believe most police officers are good but as a position of power it attracts bad apples at a higher percentage than other jobs and we need to look at what role police play in society. I'm not trying to preach politics at all, I respect any of you that disagree with my attitude towards firearms or police.
He has been recently keeping a loaded and chambered Sig Sauer 9mm on top of a narrow book shelf that is 12 feet from the front door. The book shelf is about 9 inches wide or so and is literally the first thing you see as you open the door. It is at eye level and none of us could beat an intruder to that pistol had someone ever broke in. You HAVE to see the gun if you open the door, the bookshelf is facing the door at the end of the room. We have nieces and nephews ranging from 2-8 years old that regularly visit us and the only thing stopping them from accessing that loaded firearm is a moderate bump on the shelf. I didn't feel safe with it there and felt that it was more of a political statement he was making that "We are a house of firearms" then it actually meaning to protect anyone in the house. We have no history of burgleries or intruders and live in a pretty safe town. So this is where I made the "mistake" of removing the clip and the chambered 9mm round from the gun and placed them where he stored the ammunition. I placed the pistol back on the shelf so he could still make his silly point (sorry, I'm not trying to offend gun owners, I'm still upset with the events that happened, but I think that placement is foolish and honestly reckless) to those that enter this house.
A few days later he finds the Sig Saur missing it's clip and chambered round and begins yelling at my mother that clip better be back in that pistol tonight, She has no idea what is going on. I come up the stairs because I don't want him yelling at her for something I did and tell him that I put the ammo back up where he stores it and that I thought it was a stupid idea. Yes, I said stupid, so whatever you feel about me instigating it I'm ok with.
He is yelling and saying I should have talked to him about this before touching his stuff, and no I didn't talk to him because I don't think he's resonable as of late and he would have accused me of trying to push my liberal agenda on him. We are fighting and go back in forth, it gets heated and he says the gun stays loaded and on the shelf I say I will throw the clip out if I see it in there. That was not a resonable thing for me to say, but we were fighting.
This is when he steps up to me and shoves me so hard I fall back into the $90 a square/ft quartz countertop that I FUCKING PAID HALF FOR AS A GIFT. If I knew this was going to happen I would have suggested soapstone. I wasn't expecting him to knock me down cause he's my step father. So I tumpled and hit my back hard against the countertop and fall to the ground. He is now standing over me shaking he is so angry with his fists clenched and as I'm trying to stand up and he is screaming at me:
"You've gone too fucking far, and I will expect nothing short of fucking apology from you!!!!" I get up, take my glasses off because I don't want them broken from what I suspect is a swing from a very strong farmer, I stare him in the eyes and say very clearly "You are NOT getting a fucking apology from me!" and he doesn't swing but tells me to get out of his fucking face which I am more than happy to do at this point. I'm not tough at all, you would not feel proud beating me in a fight. Right then I thought 'ok, after this punch I'm getting back up and saying "I'm glad your mom has dementia, that way she doesn't understand how shit her son has become!" I can be quick witted and cruel... I'm not proud of this, but that is what I was preparing to say after the punch because I was angry. That swing never came so that was never said, but I don't know if I would be writing this if I had. I never said I was a good person, I am working on it.
I was so angry I went to my room, looked for my shotgun in case I needed it, but was so angry in my rage I punched the hard wooden paneled wall (this isn't the 4x8 sheets, this is the 3/4" tung and grove planks) 3 times and I'm not for sure if I fractured my hand or not. It still hurts but has been feeling better, but I lost control in that moment after what I feel was domestic battery. You can decide if one push is battery/assault or not if you like, it's just how I feel. I'm not proud and my hand is recovering well getting back most of it's range of motion so I don't think I fractured it as I can't imagine the swelling going down in 4 days if a bone was broken. But play stupid games, win stupid prizes so don't punch walls
I call my sister crying for the first time since my grandpa died and she wants me to call the police. I wanted to, because I'm still in shock that this happened and this fucking psycho just attacked me! (sorry, I'm really still angry and it's very hard for me to describe the incident). I'm glad I didn't because if this fucking lunatic fucking assaulted me over putting a clip up, he'd fucking kill me if domestic battery charge cost him his gun collection.
I don't feel I'm in danger living here at least at the moment, but the house is super awkward because neither my mother or have said a word to him since the event. We are just so angry and don't want to talk to him. At all. I managed to secure an apartment literally the first business day after the weekend and will be moving out ASAP because I do have an alright rainy day fund built up.
But since then I have not been doing well... I am fucking furious and scared and I'm so fucking low, I went from taking a single .25 mg xanax for panic attacks every 4 months to having to take AT LEAST 2 a night. I've started smoking again. I'm going through crying spells that once led to me just laughing hysterically when I thought about the consquences of me moving out. I thought that was something that happens in movies but here I am loosing my fucking mind going crazy barely able to hold my shit together.
We haven't said a word since and he's been acting weird and the house is so fucking awkward because no one wants to say a word to each other. He's been acting weird just sitting in silence and he's so hard to read I don't know if he's still angry or thinks I'm over reacting and this will all blow over or so ashamed of what he did that he's going to hang himself in the garage or just doesn't really care.
How dare he fucking do this???? He could have just fucking yelled at me but he had to lay his hands on me!!! Does he fucking know this probably cost him at his step son and possibly step daughtegrandchild because she is furious and thinks the house is unsafe???? Does he fucking get that his wife is now considering divorce??? Does he get that he could have gone to jail and lost his lifelong passion of guns from that stunt??? My state they recently passed a bill that even the first offense misdomeaner domestic battery means you can't legally own a firearm??? Does he know that his step son of 25+ years is losing his fucking mind and is trying to keep from fucking crying at work (which thank fucking christ my job rents apartments to employees and fast-tracked my rental due to safety concerns).
I'm down stairs managing to find a way to blame myself because I want out of the fucking house! It's going to cost them over $25,000 in rent over those years and they are living paycheck to paycheck! So now I feel I'm going to cost them thier house and thier marriage just because want to be left alone and I feel like this could cost me my relationship with my step brothers! He fucking did this and now I'm fucking crying thinking about how just because I want to live in a small apartment to work on myself and be left alone and that means I have to make the descision to leave my mother with this fucking piece of shit and that makes me a fucking shit human being!!!! I'm googling shit like "Is pushing actually battery" and "Can you get Battered Person Syndrom from just one event?" I'm fucking wondering if I'm over-reacting and am going to fuck up my entire family because I'm a 33 year old man who couldn't handle one fucking shove! I'm fucking ashamed of myself for calling another man Dad when I fucking know better from the last one! And Damnit I fucking know he did this and there is nothing I need to feel bad about for wanting to leave, but my bat shit fucking mind is going to be blaming myself anyways for this shit and I want to scream at the next person who tells me that. God fucking damnit, the bar was so fucking low for you to be a father and now I have a fucking black bruise the size of grapefruit on my back that my hurts when I sit at my work chair for too long!! My fucking hand hurts even typing this you fucking shit human being!! DO you even have a fucking clue how bad I'm fucked up in the head right now you waste of a human being??? How fucking dare you argue with me saying "The only way to stop a bad man with a gun is a good guy with a gun" WHEN YOU ARE THE FUCKING BAD GUY THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU DUMB REDNECK COUSIN FUCKING PSYCHOPATH!!!!! How FUCKING Dare you put me in a situation where I'm thinking if I'm going to have to use this my shotgun against you!!! I don't want to see another fucking gun or you again you low life sack of shit. What piss poor excuse of a man assaults his son in front of his fucking mother!!!!! What pathetic man picks guns over his own family????? I'm ashamed to have ever called you my 'Dad'

Previous: Master Key
[The High Dictat sat at their desk, deep in the command center private quarters, a small draconic head held in each hand. It had been days now, since the Jennifer had raided the Cultural Study Holding Cell ward, and had -rather forcibly- released all of the SubCitizen study captives.
While the Engineering AIs were having a gold mine of abstract study of how a freight and shipping handling crowbar could indeed overcome holding cell bars (among many, many other things), and was on its own quite fascinating; the Jennifer and that damnable Crowbar were starting to work a very noticeable effect on the massive Cultural Research Station, with its many habitation spheres, shipyard drydocks, refueling, production, and research capabilities spanning several cubic kilometers. How such a small thing as a pissed off human test subject and a bar of hardened steel could do quite so much on this grand of a scale was quite inconceivable.
Normally such an insurgent vandal within the station would have been located and arrested quite quickly, but there was the other damnable factor: the Adjutant AI that was helping her. It was still unclear just as to why it chose to do so. But the fact remains that in its short time of interaction with the Jennifer, the AI had unlocked potentials and capabilities far beyond its normal parameters- the High Oracle had hinted as much. That AI was an insidious hacker of all Station meta info-structures, and insured that the movements and goals of the Jennifer remained unknown.
The High Dictat's desk speaker chimed]
"Uh Sir, we have another incident, down on the Market Veranda"
The High Dictat sighed "What critical piece of machinery was destroyed this time?"
"Oh, my apologies. Not that kind of incident. But its the escaped Cultural Study aliens... they seem to be gaining sympathy from the Market Vendors. Rather large stocks of supplies and gear have gone missing from all of them, all quite unaccounted for."
[The High Dictat hissed and slammed their talons onto the desk as they abruptly rose to their feet.]
"So now the Stations own citizenry are turning against us?!"
"W-word of the Cultural Research methods and practices are becoming common knowledge. The proof is there for all to behold, now."
[The twin serpentine neck of the High Dictat shivered in impotent rage]
"CALL the Galactic Navy and Void Hunter Special forces craft! I now DEMAND they arrive immediately to instill full martial law!"
"The Navy is enroute, but um.. The Void Hunter commander has stated that he will NOT engage. Not until the Jennifer actually kills someone."
"Hah! She has killed at least dozens-"
"No. No sir. Not a single one. At this time, that is. She has apparently been quite careful and restrained. If... if you can believe it."
[The High Dictat froze in place for a moment, lost in the though of how much worse the Jennifer could possibly get, if all of this was her under self restraint. They needed to buy time- time for the navy support to arrive and dock with the station. An idea came to them]
"These are my orders, under full authority as High Dictat: Lock down the station. Everyone to remain in quarters. Seal all primary Compartmentalization Blast doors.. I honestly should have thought of this sooner! Then gas all pressurized compartments with the Cultural Research Opiate gas reserves. This has proven to slow the Jennifer Down. We will then prepare for the Naval support for full fireteam sweep, compartment by compartment"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Gorka Manrippa was cranking on a chain strap, tightening and securing even more armor plated slabs to the nose and side of his hand crafted "Raidbuggy", deep in a locked off maintenance hangar. He was preparing for a 'Glorious Day', in his cultures deeply rooted tradition. Jenna and her little golden toy AI had been very helpful, getting him and his fellow prisoners setup to work here.
Gorka stiffened and smelled something in the station air. He heard a thump behind him, and turned to see that one of his mates had collapsed onto the floor. Not dead, but unresponsive, drooling. He growled and shoved a grease slathered rag against his mouth and blunt nose. It was the Gas!
Gorka felt his arms turn to lead, growing too heavy to lift, and scrambled in a near collapse to the shop office where Jenna was resting. He had to warn her! This gas was just too powerful! Gorka knew that even with his turbocharged physique, he would be unconscious in moments!]
"Jenna! GAS! It.. its the-"
[Gorka paused as he sagged downward in the doorway, staring in awe. Jenna was fine. She was actually smiling]
"Oh, hey Gorky! I know, right? wooo! Vicodin buzzzzzzin!" [She said in a slightly slurred drunken tone]
[As Gorka Manrippa, psycho-pharma-jacked warlord of a thousand wars in the desolate tundras of a war savaged world, slipped into the tunnel vision of a blackout; he could only stare in amazement at the small Human being in front of him, wondering how she could possibly withstand any of it]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"But wha.. wha'sh there tadoo? Everythshings lockeredown tight. even youshaydshow"

[The Jennifer sighed as she lounged back on an office table, and drifted to sleep, a wide grin on her face. She was finally subdued, lying unconscious in maintenance hangar B-]
YOU DONT! Ive been waiting to try this! (Just don't compute. Just don't compute, brace myself!) *ahem* {div-div-DIVIDE b-by-by-BY z-ze-zer-ZERO}!
[.. In maintenance hangar B/0. that is.. that's weird, I don't think I have ever divided by zero bef- .... .. . . ]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[The Jennifer was jolted awake. Groggy. Something had awoken her.]
THUMP!
"Woa! what was that?!"

THUMP!
[The heavy thud was felt through the entire station structure]
"Hey.. what is that? Are we in danger? is everything-"
THUMP!
"Gah!- thats really alarming! What the hell is going on out there, little dude?!"

THUMP!
"The.. the one we fed and broke into the sleeping area for, yeah...? what about him?"
THUMP!

THUMP!
"well??"

THUMP!

[The Adjutant AI spun in excited glee, to Jennifer's blank stare of confusion]
---------------------------------------------------------------
[The Station security and damage control centers were abuzz in frantic activity. Something very seriously wrong was occurring! No one could figure out how it was occurring, nor how to stop it. There was a madman in the Shipping Massdriver Delivery control tower, apparently shooting shipping containers like enormous bullets at various targets around the station. First the Cultural Study Knockout Gas tanks and processors were annihilated, then other targets of opportunity. The madman was cackling with glee, but was surprisingly skilled at firing the makeshift cannon- he may have been a ships gunner in his past service. His skill was good enough to keep the Naval support craft at bay, unable to dock. They were evading wildly, and most of the docking bays have been shot by the 'SMD cannon' already.]
Next: A Glorious Day
​

7/11/06
Bam Margera - Will Pendarvis (Head of Sirius Radio) - Terry hardy (Bams Manager)
Radio Bam - full episode #78
- Bam is noticeably tired and hungover from his early A.M. flight from California
- The taxi guy couldn't comprehend how to get to Bam's house, then wouldn't shut the fuck up so Bam could sleep. Bam almost Doxes himself trying to tell the story.
- Lendon (Black Aquaman) once overheard someone saying Bam was a dickhead for not her tippingwhile he ate at a TGI Fridays. "I've never even been there!".
- Bam talks about Vitos stupid friend Wayne again getting pussy off of Bams name.
- Because Bam is a celebrity, he has to tip very handsomely or else he will get a bad reputation. "It's the curse of being a celebrity".
- Bam is preparing to shoot the Wolf Mother Video with the Jackasss guys in Australia in a few days. Bam says the reason he flew at 5AM to Cali is so they wouldn't play a re-run of an episode the fans have already heard (Thanks Bam).
PLACEBO - INFARED
- Bam forgot to mention that the annoying talkative driver that picked him up hit a fucking deer as well! "I'm already late because of this asshole and now he's on the side of the road looking at a small ass dent!"
- Bam talks about the taxicab driver who hit and run on his Lambo on the corner of Vine and Hollywood while he was in Cali.
- Bam is attending the Jackass 2 premier and is looking forward to the opening scene "I wasn't in control at all! it involves live animals!"
- Bam got a tattoo of a bear fucking a kitty cat in honor of Jeff Tremaine making him do the opening scene of Jackass 2.
- Bam describes how eager the cast was to film the new Jackass movie since it has been a long while. Johnny Knoxville by far is the most willing to do anything without hesitation.
- Bam will always have someone ask him how he's in first class with all these crazy tattoos when he flies anywhere. "I tell them I'm a skateboarder"
- Bam retells the story from last episode about the rude drunk girl at the bar Duffers.
RAMMSTEIN - WU BIST DU
- Will Pendarvis asks Terry Hardy how it is managing someone who is so unpredictable like Bam "It's like being a Circus Ringleader".
- Bam will get multimillion proposals to promote things such as Cheese Nips but Terry Hardy does a good job of sifting through the good and bad offers that Bam would actually enjoy doing.
- Vito finally got the Budweiser sponsor he's been begging for, but it's only a free case of beer a week which normally lasts about an hour or so, Terry was the one who got it for him and Vitos VERY thankful.
- Vito went to a Philli's Game and got in trouble for choking out one of The Met's players, soo bad in fact that he got kicked out of the game!
- Bam and Vito were filming at CBGS's for MTV but Vito will show up drunk and try to sneak beers on set. "But what MTV doesn't realize when they come to take his beer again is that he will just slug the beers faster and gets drunker 50% faster!"
- "That guy's a mess!" Will Pendarvis comments on Vitos Lifestyle as the moment.
- Bam also mentions that once MTV got all the footage for the "All that Rocks" segment on MTV2, they immediately kicked Vito out.
- Vito was soo drunk that he thought it was over and it was time to go and doesn't believe Bam that he was kicked out. " I was sober because I had loads of lines to memorize!" Bam defends.
- Vito is a party 24/7, once Vito hears "YO!" he will spin off into "YO! Get Right Guard!" but he has a Bleeding Ulcer and needs to stop partying.
- "Vito drinks up to 40 Budweisers a day, Takes Viagra with no pussy lined up, and takes Vicodin!"
- Bam fishtails out of the gas station in the Lambo while on a beer run with Oz, then he fishtails both of his old limos and manages to slide one right into his in-ground pool. "Man, it sure was funny..."
- Terrys Porche got sandwiched between a Mercedes and a landscaping truck causing $38,000 of damage.
- Bam says you have to not give a fuck if you want to drive a Lambo, "Got have to expect that it will get keyed, scratch the rims on a curb, or ding your door on something."
- Bams purple Lambo is currently covered in scratches and dents. Bam leaves the Blue Lambo in the west coast and the Purple Lambo in the east coast so he can have a Lambo for both.
- Will Pendarvis was driving Bams Lambo and disappoints every fan thinking that its Bam driving around California.
- Bam asks if the guys are going to see the new Super Man movie coming out. Bam prefers heroes with hidden identities.
INTERNATIONAL NOISE CONSPIRACY - SMASH IT UP
BLOOD HOUND GANG - I HOPE YOU DIE
- Bam talks about how a group of '8-year-old black girls' were checking out his car and says the N-word twice describing how they talked. "Damn N***a that car is phat as shit Yo!" (Yikes).
- Bam ran into "Thugs" at a gas station while he was driving and immediately stereotypes them, and again says the N-word describing how they talk...
- Will there be a Jackass Game coming out? a Bam video game? (Besides Tony Hawks pro skater).
- Joe Frantz driving habits and car slection.
End Show.