Do you have to have a fever when you have strep throat

I am working on getting into a doctor as soon as I can, but of course—still seeking advice until I get in!
Had sex with a new partner on April 22nd. We used a condom, but he did go down on me. At that time, he shared that he was clean (but people lie so never know).
I got sick on April 24th— sore throat, body aches, fever, swollen tonsils. On April 26th, strep, flu, covid tests all negative and given a steroid shot and antibiotics.
Finished antibiotics on May 5th. Swollen tonsils became main issue again on May 6th and went to urgent care. Strep and mono tests negative. Got a different steroid and antibiotic.
Woke up early in the morning on May 7th unable to swallow and a hard time breathing so I went to the ER. Was given IV steroids, antibiotics, and pain meds. Sent home with another antibiotic prescription and started them that day.
On May 10th, started the yeast infection symptoms. I got Monistat 1 day (will never do again lol) on May 11th. Used a pad on the 11th and 12th with the discharge with it. On May 12th, I noticed the open sores on my labias.
I don’t have as much discharge anymore from the yeast infection standpoint, but I don’t know how to get the sores healed. I’ve been trying to keep it clean, dry, and aired out (wearing a dress to work with no underwear).
At first I thought it was a reaction to the Monistat, then maybe from the yeast infection, and now terrified its herpes from going down rabbit holes.
Any advice on relieving symptoms until I get in to the doctor?
I have a link to a NSFW photo of the sores too but want to make sure I don’t violate the community rules with posting it.
THANK YOU 🙏

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

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


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

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

Hi everyone!
I am 25F, Caucasian, 127 lbs, 5’2”, non-smoking. I am currently on levothyroxine for suspected subclinical hypothyroidism. Previous blood tests did reveal that I have high lipoprotein a.
I recently contracted a bug and started having symptoms on May 9, 2024. It consisted of a fever for the first few days, extreme fatigue, sore throat and cough. Jump to today, May 13, 2024, I still have the fatigue, and wet cough. I had to return to work today, and I actually felt ok this morning, so I wore a mask and I was good for about 2 hours, then I began to have what my doctor has described in the past as a Vasovagal reaction (without losing consciousness, as I know it’s coming and can sit down ASAP). The past reaction was completely unrelated and random. I had 3 “reactions” in the span of 5-10 minutes today, and ultimately left work. I have never had this when healing from sickness prior. I have been taking cold meds and muscle and joint pills to help aid my symptoms since the 9th.
I am likely going to take tomorrow off as well, however, I’m not sure what to do so this does not happen again. My job requires you to be on your feet. My doctor is hard to get into on such short notice! Any help is appreciated!

Sorry, big vent incoming. Just want to get it out somewhere.
Our house got the stomach bug last week. My daughter picked it up at a local mom get together (why do you go to those if you are/were just sick??? UGH) So it was 5 days of me, my husband and my toddler girl being sick with all the gross stuff. Luckily my husband and I got over the stomach things, but the diarrhea is lingering in my toddler (to my understanding this is relatively normal, but it still makes me anxious).
I hated those 5 days. I felt like crap, I felt bad for my sweet husband who felt like even worse crap and I still feel so bad for my little baby girl who is still dealing with stuff.
And just when my gut started feeling better I picked up a sore throat which luckily wasn’t strep, doc thought it was just something viral, but that quickly turned into laryngitis and now I’ve lost my voice and my nose is starting to get stuffed and I’m worried I have a sinus infection coming on. And oh yeah I’m 20 weeks pregnant 😭 (don’t worry I’ve been in touch with my medical provider this whole time and baby isn’t in any danger, it’s just a little icing on this cake of discomfort). And I’m only three days into this nose/throat thing, and it could easily last another week.
I just hate losing more sleep than I already am due to not being able to breathe + throat pain. I hate that I can’t communicate with my daughter or my husband. I hate not being able to swallow without pain. I hate that I feel like crap.
I realize I have a LOT to be thankful for, I just want to be back to my normal so I can be a happiebetter mom and wife.
So yeah, being sick with a sick toddler is definitely top 3 least favorite part about parenthood. It might take spot number one but I’m saving that for something worse that may come along 🙃

Several people have approached me that they might have endometriosis. Lifelong warrior so thought I would share my tips and tricks I put together for my friends and family to share with you :) Hope this helps someone!
ENDOMETRIOSIS SURGERY FACTS

• EXCISION SURGERY! I cannot stress this one enough. If you have an ablation, it will grow back and likely quick (but consult with your doctors on your case 100%). Excision is when they cut it out vs. it gets burned off. You will have a better success rate and slow rate of growth if they excise. Not all cases can be depending on location so again, please talk with your doctor about your situation. This is not the same for everyone.
• If your doctor cannot do excision surgery. Skip and move on to the next! Trust me, well worth the time to research and find the right doctor. You will thank me later for this one too haha.
• Finding a doctor is stuff. Also tough to find resources. If you cannot find an Endometriosis specialist in your area who does excision, you may need to look out of state, but one tip is exploring gynecological oncologists. Some will take benign cases, but not all so do your research. But it’s a good avenue for help in your area or you want insurance coverage.
• Nanny’s Nook is a good resource for online information regarding endometriosis: https://nancysnookendo.com/
• Dr Seckin’s book called The Doctor Will See You Now is also worth the read (https://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Will-See-You-Endometriosis/dp/1681621126)
• Definitely look into Egg Freezing before doing any permanent surgeries. The ovaries are more intact when there is a uterus in place, so I recommend immediately following any excisions with Egg Freezing if you can and if it’s part of your plans. I found my AMH levels low (1.2) but still retrieved 25 eggs, so never be discouraged if this is your future planning path.
• My Symptoms: I experience bloating, constipation, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting as the main culprits. I have irregular periods in regards to the number of days and if it comes or not (even with an IUD). Pelvic pain is probably the worst of all since it accompanies these symptoms and is present a majority of the time. Others may have different symptoms, and there’s many others I didn’t list but wanted to paint the picture of some I’ve experienced.

ENDOMETRIOSIS LAPAROSCOPIC SURGERY (WHAT TO EXPECT)
PRE-SURGERY

• List of questions to ask your doctor
• Insurance Information and ID
• Necessary forms or paperwork the doctor requires
• Make sure any medical records are sent that would be relevant

POST-OP PREP

• Eat smaller meals and simple foods days beforehand. If bowel prep is necessary, they also recommend taking a laxative in the days leading up to help prep.
• Pack a bag! Not every surgery is an overnight stay but even if you have a day-of surgery, back an overnight bag. Here’s the essentials:
  • Phone/Headphones/iPad/Kindle/Books
  • Device Chargers
  • Medications that you currently take
  • Glasses (do not wear contacts day of)
  • An extra pair of underwear
  • Sanitary Pads or Always Discreet
  • Comfy pants with light elastic band around the waist
  • Non wired bra
  • Slip on shoes (this is clutch! Recommend slides -https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BL7LJKZW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1).
  • Layers - Sweatshirt, Long Sleeved Shirt etc. - Hospitals are cold!
  • Toothbrush and tooth paste
  • Hairbrush
  • Face wipes, wash cloth, small towel and bar of soap.

SPACE PREP

1. Make sure your bed or couch is prepped. I stayed on the first level for the first 2ish days before feeling well enough to stay upstairs.
2. I used a pregnancy pillow on the bed to help me stay on my back while sleeping and help you feel cozy.
3. Stock the house with foods that will be light for your stomach. Think soups and casseroles! Saltine crackers, broths, rices etc..
4. If you have a raised bed, get a step stool to assist. It’s best to sit on the side of the bed and slowly lay your upper body down while bringing your knees up and over to your back. You will need to use arm strength the first couple of days to get you up and over since you can’t use the abdomen.
5. Water and Beverages stocked at all times. I have a reusable water bottle and avoid carbonated beverages for the time being. They fill you with gas for the procedure so it may make those symptoms worse.
6. Netflix, Kindle, Puzzles, Craft Projects…visits with friends. Whatever makes the time pass, set it up ahead of time so it’s handy.
7. Items to Keep on Hand: Baby Wipes, heating pads, pads/diapers, candles, essential oils, things that smell good haha

BOWEL PREP
This is dependent on the type of surgery you are having, but its good to have Gatorade, Magnesium Citrate (liquid), laxatives and enemas on hand just in case you need these.
ON SURGERY DAY
It’s important to follow the instructions on what to stop taking and/or eating/drinking prior to the surgery. Wear comfy clothes (wide elastic waistband) and slides with cozy socks. Double check your to go bag and breath.
AT THE HOSPITAL

1. Do your check-ins and keep your people with you as long as you want.
2. Make sure to read all the consent forms and ask any questions upfront. Make any advance directives clear.
3. Just try to remain calm as there’s a lot of down time while they do intake. It is about 2 hours of prep before they bring you in for the surgery itself.
4. They will ask you the same questions over and over again, that’s normal and trust me, you want to confirm it’s all being done properly.
5. If you need something for anxiety, they will be sure to give you something if you ask :)
6. You will be wearing a gown, socks, funky underwear and a cool hair net haha wear the gown backward so you keep warm and keep the butt covered.
7. Vitals will happen and the anesthesiologist will come and speak with you to make sure they prep the right meds beforehand. Bring up any concerns here with them!
8. You may be wheeled or walked into surgery. I’ve only ever walked in and laid on the table myself.
9. They will then put the IV in your arm and sometimes will put on a mask, they will then ask you to count backwards and before you know it, you will be awake again!

RECOVERY

• You will wake-up and feel groggy. Totally normal and you will be in a different room. They will likely say a lot really quick about your surgery. Before leaving ask for them to walk through it or see if you can speak with the doctor again when clear headed. RECOMMENDED!
• Your throat will be sore, that’s normal from the tube.
• Just relax and sleep it off if you want, the goal is to be relaxed and pee once before leaving.
• Before you go, eat and drink and pass smoke urine. They’ll provide you with the meds and you’ll be good to go.
• Make sure someone brings you home after :)
• Make sure you have a bag for vomit in the car.
• Bring a small pillow that can be strapped between the car belt and you for maximum comfort on the trip home.
• Pain Med Management: This one is important. I messed up night one and didn’t take it soon enough and was in too much pain so make sure you stick to the schedule the doctors give you to ensure you are comfortable.
• Keep Walking: It seems unnatural to have a surgery then walk, but the sooner you get up and keep moving around the house, the better. Just avoid heavy lifting and immense bending like movements. Stairs are also ok but also consult with your doctor!
• Gas Build Up: I did feel pain in my shoulders from the gas. Just keep moving! It will help get that out of the system but this pain is normal.
• Relax and let people take care of you! Don’t be too quick to recover.
• Keep an eye out for fever, increased vaginal bleeding, or feeling terrible.
• Keep all post op appointments and follow all post op instructions!

ENDOMETRIOSIS MAINTENANCE
Here’s the tips and tricks I found helpful for maintaining my pain and symptoms (GI and back pain related):

1. Pelvic Floor Therapy: This is important for keeping the muscles in your pelvis healthy and strong to maintain your structure and also help manage pain. Consult with your doctor on whether this is right for you.
2. Physical Therapy: I do PT for my back and pelvic floor since it’s all related. We focus on Myofascial Release Therapy to help break up the adhesions and give me more mobility. This helps with temporary pain relief (reduction in number), but that is always welcome :)
3. Acupuncture: I swear by Acupuncture. I don’t know what it does or why, but it works. It’s not a cure by any means, but it's great for relaxation, fertility, digestion, endometriosis, sleep, etc.. I can go on, but it’s not covered by insurance plans all the time so you will need to check and see what you’re able to take on.
4. Diet/Exercise:
   1. Eating high protein, lower fat/carbs (not none just low) helps your body, but overall learn your trigger foods! This will go a long way.
   2. Ginger, turmeric and fennel all help with bloating. I like to drink them in tea form when I’m feeling particularly hard stomached as it’s a good natural way to decrease the bloat. Peppermint also works for some, for me it irritates my GERD.
   3. Chamomile for relaxation
   4. Walking and movement are important. I cannot do anything high impact due to my sacroiliitis diagnosis, so I stick with light yoga and walking.
5. Alcohol/Other Substances: Don’t do it. Don’t touch it. You’ll thank me later on this point.
6. Sleep: Insomnia is a very real thing. I think I went 2 or 3 days at its worst one time and I cannot say enough how important trying to keep the same sleep schedule will benefit you. Waking and sleeping around the same time each day will still feel exhausting but at least you know your body is getting the most sleep it can get.
7. Medications/Supplements:
   1. Ibprofuern: This does NOT work for me. I have GERD and ulcers so I cannot take NSAIDs, but with that in mind, NSAIDs are supposedly the best pain medication over the counter to help you manage it.
   2. Pain Killers: These are AS NEEDED. I try to refrain and leave these for the TRULY bad days which I try to spread out. Not even worth it sometimes, because I don’t like how I feel and sometimes vomit after taking them. But they do help the pain!
   3. IUD/Orilissa: An IUD will NOT do anything. If you are diagnosed, ask your doctor about Orilissa or similar medicines instead of birth control methods. This will not stop the growth, just suppress it. There are side effects and it is only a short term solution.
   4. Linzess: This worked well for me for constipation symptoms when they got severe. Definitely recommend bringing this to your doctor if you’re truly suffering and they have not yet mentioned. I also resorted after trying magnesium citrate
   5. CBD Lotions/Salves: For my pelvis, I use Healing Rose CBD Salve in Orange and Lavender (https://www.thehealingroseco.com/product/orange-lavender-with-chamomile-herbal-salve-300mg-cbd/). For my back, I use a medical grade CBD lotion with menthol (https://cbdclinic.co/clinical-strength-series/). I also use a CBD massage oil from Healing Rose of the same scent when doing myofascial release at home. I also use Somedays Cramp Cream (https://somedays.com/products/period-cramp-cream?variant=42062153842853).
8. Heating Pads and Ice Pack: I have several varieties of heating pads. A cordless travel heating pad (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FPTJL4G?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details), a plug-in heating pad (lhttps://www.hsn.com/products/pure-enrichment-purerelief-xxl-heating-pad-with-9-cord/22188460) and stick on patches (https://www.thermacare.com/ - I use the back patches but reverse them to the front for better coverage). For hot flashes and night sweats (also if you need to relax while anxious) place an ice pack over your chest to help cool or calm down.
9. Self-Care: No joke, massages, facials, epsom salt baths, sound baths, reiki….anything that you find relaxing. Do it. Try it! They also make CBD bath bombs Ive been wanting to check out.
10. TENs Machine: I really want one, don’t have one, but people swear by them (the heating pad linked to MyObi has a TENs version - https://myobistore.com/en-us/collections/my-obi-belts/products/apollo-2-0).
11. Pregnancy Pillow: This one sounds so lame, but I bought a pregnancy pillow for my first endometriosis surgery since I’m a side sleeper to help keep me on my back during recovery. It changed by life! It helps my anxiety and makes me comfortable while sleeping. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08YYVRXLM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)..
12. Heated Blankets/Cozy Blankets: Make yourself feel better with a cozy blanket. Do it, I dare you!
13. Endo To-Go Bag: Includes heating pads (travel, plug-in and patches), medications, balms/salves, essential oils and pads/protection items, change of clothes, wet wipes.
14. Sex Life: I’m single, I don’t have a partner to worry about communicating this issue with at this point, but go slow and communicate given eventually this will have to be a conversation. What I have learned is that if you do have sex and feel pain. Immediately stop! If you associate sex with pain mentally in that moment, it may cause fear in doing so down the line so it’s best to stop the moment you feel any pain occur.
15. Work Life: I work a demanding job so it was not working with the appointments and care I needed to manage pain. Always get FMLA from your doctor for intermittent leave based on your company's policies. This protects you from flare-ups and appointments. Short Term Disability is based on your situation with work so talk with them about any leave of absence for surgery and recovery and ensure the medical providers fill out the paperwork appropriately.
16. Friends/Family: This one is the worst. I have to cancel and make plans all the time based on how I feel. I like to line up a bunch of plans for three months out and do my best to make them happen at the beginning of the month when I know I’m most likely to feel good. I just say I’ll make things up to them when I get better and those who have stuck around have been truly amazing friends, but don’t be upset that some might be over the day in and out of what you’re going through. It’s hard for you and sometimes others and it’s just a part of the relationships we’re meant to experience in life. Most people (unless they have endometriosis) don’t understand it so it can feel isolating, but there’s others out there who know what you’re going through and are willing to chat. Just gotta find them and reach out on social media, online etc..
17. Journaling Symptoms: Guilty of not being the best at this always, but it's good to track your symptoms to see how they work and operate. It helps not only you plan for it, but also your doctors in how best to handle your care. Take photos of things that make sense to show your doctors! Discharge, bowels etc..can sometimes help diagnose or judge with the images.
18. Next to Bed Kit: Make sure your nightstand is stocked with the essentials for your bad days. Makes it easier to access the items you need when you just can’t get up and get it.
19. Squatty Potty: Another thing that is majorly life changing on constipation days! Get one or you can make your own :) Take a stack of books and stack them at equal heights on each side and put your feet up. The trick is making sure you’re in a squat with your knees high to your ears.
20. Clothing: Dressing for this is key but you still want to look cute! Joggers with a stretchy waist are my go to pants, but wide leg trousers with a stretchy waist help with ease of removal but also comfort and brings some style to the look.
21. Pads: I wear Always Discreet vs. pads. I find when you need to wear them full time for incontinence it just makes it more comfortable. They have different cuts and styles so definitely check them out!

Several people have approached me that they might have endometriosis. Lifelong warrior so thought I would share my tips and tricks I put together for my friends and family to share with you :) Hope this helps someone!
ENDOMETRIOSIS SURGERY FACTS

• EXCISION SURGERY! I cannot stress this one enough. If you have an ablation, it will grow back and likely quick (but consult with your doctors on your case 100%). Excision is when they cut it out vs. it gets burned off. You will have a better success rate and slow rate of growth if they excise. Not all cases can be depending on location so again, please talk with your doctor about your situation. This is not the same for everyone.
• If your doctor cannot do excision surgery. Skip and move on to the next! Trust me, well worth the time to research and find the right doctor. You will thank me later for this one too haha.
• Finding a doctor is stuff. Also tough to find resources. If you cannot find an Endometriosis specialist in your area who does excision, you may need to look out of state, but one tip is exploring gynecological oncologists. Some will take benign cases, but not all so do your research. But it’s a good avenue for help in your area or you want insurance coverage.
• Nanny’s Nook is a good resource for online information regarding endometriosis: https://nancysnookendo.com/
• Dr Seckin’s book called The Doctor Will See You Now is also worth the read (https://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Will-See-You-Endometriosis/dp/1681621126)
• Definitely look into Egg Freezing before doing any permanent surgeries. The ovaries are more intact when there is a uterus in place, so I recommend immediately following any excisions with Egg Freezing if you can and if it’s part of your plans. I found my AMH levels low (1.2) but still retrieved 25 eggs, so never be discouraged if this is your future planning path.
• My Symptoms: I experience bloating, constipation, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting as the main culprits. I have irregular periods in regards to the number of days and if it comes or not (even with an IUD). Pelvic pain is probably the worst of all since it accompanies these symptoms and is present a majority of the time. Others may have different symptoms, and there’s many others I didn’t list but wanted to paint the picture of some I’ve experienced.

ENDOMETRIOSIS LAPAROSCOPIC SURGERY (WHAT TO EXPECT)
PRE-SURGERY

• List of questions to ask your doctor
• Insurance Information and ID
• Necessary forms or paperwork the doctor requires
• Make sure any medical records are sent that would be relevant

POST-OP PREP

• Eat smaller meals and simple foods days beforehand. If bowel prep is necessary, they also recommend taking a laxative in the days leading up to help prep.
• Pack a bag! Not every surgery is an overnight stay but even if you have a day-of surgery, back an overnight bag. Here’s the essentials:
  • Phone/Headphones/iPad/Kindle/Books
  • Device Chargers
  • Medications that you currently take
  • Glasses (do not wear contacts day of)
  • An extra pair of underwear
  • Sanitary Pads or Always Discreet
  • Comfy pants with light elastic band around the waist
  • Non wired bra
  • Slip on shoes (this is clutch! Recommend slides -https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BL7LJKZW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1).
  • Layers - Sweatshirt, Long Sleeved Shirt etc. - Hospitals are cold!
  • Toothbrush and tooth paste
  • Hairbrush
  • Face wipes, wash cloth, small towel and bar of soap.

SPACE PREP

1. Make sure your bed or couch is prepped. I stayed on the first level for the first 2ish days before feeling well enough to stay upstairs.
2. I used a pregnancy pillow on the bed to help me stay on my back while sleeping and help you feel cozy.
3. Stock the house with foods that will be light for your stomach. Think soups and casseroles! Saltine crackers, broths, rices etc..
4. If you have a raised bed, get a step stool to assist. It’s best to sit on the side of the bed and slowly lay your upper body down while bringing your knees up and over to your back. You will need to use arm strength the first couple of days to get you up and over since you can’t use the abdomen.
5. Water and Beverages stocked at all times. I have a reusable water bottle and avoid carbonated beverages for the time being. They fill you with gas for the procedure so it may make those symptoms worse.
6. Netflix, Kindle, Puzzles, Craft Projects…visits with friends. Whatever makes the time pass, set it up ahead of time so it’s handy.
7. Items to Keep on Hand: Baby Wipes, heating pads, pads/diapers, candles, essential oils, things that smell good haha

BOWEL PREP
This is dependent on the type of surgery you are having, but its good to have Gatorade, Magnesium Citrate (liquid), laxatives and enemas on hand just in case you need these.
ON SURGERY DAY
It’s important to follow the instructions on what to stop taking and/or eating/drinking prior to the surgery. Wear comfy clothes (wide elastic waistband) and slides with cozy socks. Double check your to go bag and breath.
AT THE HOSPITAL

1. Do your check-ins and keep your people with you as long as you want.
2. Make sure to read all the consent forms and ask any questions upfront. Make any advance directives clear.
3. Just try to remain calm as there’s a lot of down time while they do intake. It is about 2 hours of prep before they bring you in for the surgery itself.
4. They will ask you the same questions over and over again, that’s normal and trust me, you want to confirm it’s all being done properly.
5. If you need something for anxiety, they will be sure to give you something if you ask :)
6. You will be wearing a gown, socks, funky underwear and a cool hair net haha wear the gown backward so you keep warm and keep the butt covered.
7. Vitals will happen and the anesthesiologist will come and speak with you to make sure they prep the right meds beforehand. Bring up any concerns here with them!
8. You may be wheeled or walked into surgery. I’ve only ever walked in and laid on the table myself.
9. They will then put the IV in your arm and sometimes will put on a mask, they will then ask you to count backwards and before you know it, you will be awake again!

RECOVERY

• You will wake-up and feel groggy. Totally normal and you will be in a different room. They will likely say a lot really quick about your surgery. Before leaving ask for them to walk through it or see if you can speak with the doctor again when clear headed. RECOMMENDED!
• Your throat will be sore, that’s normal from the tube.
• Just relax and sleep it off if you want, the goal is to be relaxed and pee once before leaving.
• Before you go, eat and drink and pass smoke urine. They’ll provide you with the meds and you’ll be good to go.
• Make sure someone brings you home after :)
• Make sure you have a bag for vomit in the car.
• Bring a small pillow that can be strapped between the car belt and you for maximum comfort on the trip home.
• Pain Med Management: This one is important. I messed up night one and didn’t take it soon enough and was in too much pain so make sure you stick to the schedule the doctors give you to ensure you are comfortable.
• Keep Walking: It seems unnatural to have a surgery then walk, but the sooner you get up and keep moving around the house, the better. Just avoid heavy lifting and immense bending like movements. Stairs are also ok but also consult with your doctor!
• Gas Build Up: I did feel pain in my shoulders from the gas. Just keep moving! It will help get that out of the system but this pain is normal.
• Relax and let people take care of you! Don’t be too quick to recover.
• Keep an eye out for fever, increased vaginal bleeding, or feeling terrible.
• Keep all post op appointments and follow all post op instructions!

ENDOMETRIOSIS MAINTENANCE
Here’s the tips and tricks I found helpful for maintaining my pain and symptoms (GI and back pain related):

1. Pelvic Floor Therapy: This is important for keeping the muscles in your pelvis healthy and strong to maintain your structure and also help manage pain. Consult with your doctor on whether this is right for you.
2. Physical Therapy: I do PT for my back and pelvic floor since it’s all related. We focus on Myofascial Release Therapy to help break up the adhesions and give me more mobility. This helps with temporary pain relief (reduction in number), but that is always welcome :)
3. Acupuncture: I swear by Acupuncture. I don’t know what it does or why, but it works. It’s not a cure by any means, but it's great for relaxation, fertility, digestion, endometriosis, sleep, etc.. I can go on, but it’s not covered by insurance plans all the time so you will need to check and see what you’re able to take on.
4. Diet/Exercise:
   1. Eating high protein, lower fat/carbs (not none just low) helps your body, but overall learn your trigger foods! This will go a long way.
   2. Ginger, turmeric and fennel all help with bloating. I like to drink them in tea form when I’m feeling particularly hard stomached as it’s a good natural way to decrease the bloat. Peppermint also works for some, for me it irritates my GERD.
   3. Chamomile for relaxation
   4. Walking and movement are important. I cannot do anything high impact due to my sacroiliitis diagnosis, so I stick with light yoga and walking.
5. Alcohol/Other Substances: Don’t do it. Don’t touch it. You’ll thank me later on this point.
6. Sleep: Insomnia is a very real thing. I think I went 2 or 3 days at its worst one time and I cannot say enough how important trying to keep the same sleep schedule will benefit you. Waking and sleeping around the same time each day will still feel exhausting but at least you know your body is getting the most sleep it can get.
7. Medications/Supplements:
   1. Ibprofuern: This does NOT work for me. I have GERD and ulcers so I cannot take NSAIDs, but with that in mind, NSAIDs are supposedly the best pain medication over the counter to help you manage it.
   2. Pain Killers: These are AS NEEDED. I try to refrain and leave these for the TRULY bad days which I try to spread out. Not even worth it sometimes, because I don’t like how I feel and sometimes vomit after taking them. But they do help the pain!
   3. IUD/Orilissa: An IUD will NOT do anything. If you are diagnosed, ask your doctor about Orilissa or similar medicines instead of birth control methods. This will not stop the growth, just suppress it. There are side effects and it is only a short term solution.
   4. Linzess: This worked well for me for constipation symptoms when they got severe. Definitely recommend bringing this to your doctor if you’re truly suffering and they have not yet mentioned. I also resorted after trying magnesium citrate
   5. CBD Lotions/Salves: For my pelvis, I use Healing Rose CBD Salve in Orange and Lavender (https://www.thehealingroseco.com/product/orange-lavender-with-chamomile-herbal-salve-300mg-cbd/). For my back, I use a medical grade CBD lotion with menthol (https://cbdclinic.co/clinical-strength-series/). I also use a CBD massage oil from Healing Rose of the same scent when doing myofascial release at home. I also use Somedays Cramp Cream (https://somedays.com/products/period-cramp-cream?variant=42062153842853).
8. Heating Pads and Ice Pack: I have several varieties of heating pads. A cordless travel heating pad (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FPTJL4G?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details), a plug-in heating pad (lhttps://www.hsn.com/products/pure-enrichment-purerelief-xxl-heating-pad-with-9-cord/22188460) and stick on patches (https://www.thermacare.com/ - I use the back patches but reverse them to the front for better coverage). For hot flashes and night sweats (also if you need to relax while anxious) place an ice pack over your chest to help cool or calm down.
9. Self-Care: No joke, massages, facials, epsom salt baths, sound baths, reiki….anything that you find relaxing. Do it. Try it! They also make CBD bath bombs Ive been wanting to check out.
10. TENs Machine: I really want one, don’t have one, but people swear by them (the heating pad linked to MyObi has a TENs version - https://myobistore.com/en-us/collections/my-obi-belts/products/apollo-2-0).
11. Pregnancy Pillow: This one sounds so lame, but I bought a pregnancy pillow for my first endometriosis surgery since I’m a side sleeper to help keep me on my back during recovery. It changed by life! It helps my anxiety and makes me comfortable while sleeping. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08YYVRXLM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)..
12. Heated Blankets/Cozy Blankets: Make yourself feel better with a cozy blanket. Do it, I dare you!
13. Endo To-Go Bag: Includes heating pads (travel, plug-in and patches), medications, balms/salves, essential oils and pads/protection items, change of clothes, wet wipes.
14. Sex Life: I’m single, I don’t have a partner to worry about communicating this issue with at this point, but go slow and communicate given eventually this will have to be a conversation. What I have learned is that if you do have sex and feel pain. Immediately stop! If you associate sex with pain mentally in that moment, it may cause fear in doing so down the line so it’s best to stop the moment you feel any pain occur.
15. Work Life: I work a demanding job so it was not working with the appointments and care I needed to manage pain. Always get FMLA from your doctor for intermittent leave based on your company's policies. This protects you from flare-ups and appointments. Short Term Disability is based on your situation with work so talk with them about any leave of absence for surgery and recovery and ensure the medical providers fill out the paperwork appropriately.
16. Friends/Family: This one is the worst. I have to cancel and make plans all the time based on how I feel. I like to line up a bunch of plans for three months out and do my best to make them happen at the beginning of the month when I know I’m most likely to feel good. I just say I’ll make things up to them when I get better and those who have stuck around have been truly amazing friends, but don’t be upset that some might be over the day in and out of what you’re going through. It’s hard for you and sometimes others and it’s just a part of the relationships we’re meant to experience in life. Most people (unless they have endometriosis) don’t understand it so it can feel isolating, but there’s others out there who know what you’re going through and are willing to chat. Just gotta find them and reach out on social media, online etc..
17. Journaling Symptoms: Guilty of not being the best at this always, but it's good to track your symptoms to see how they work and operate. It helps not only you plan for it, but also your doctors in how best to handle your care. Take photos of things that make sense to show your doctors! Discharge, bowels etc..can sometimes help diagnose or judge with the images.
18. Next to Bed Kit: Make sure your nightstand is stocked with the essentials for your bad days. Makes it easier to access the items you need when you just can’t get up and get it.
19. Squatty Potty: Another thing that is majorly life changing on constipation days! Get one or you can make your own :) Take a stack of books and stack them at equal heights on each side and put your feet up. The trick is making sure you’re in a squat with your knees high to your ears.
20. Clothing: Dressing for this is key but you still want to look cute! Joggers with a stretchy waist are my go to pants, but wide leg trousers with a stretchy waist help with ease of removal but also comfort and brings some style to the look.
21. Pads: I wear Always Discreet vs. pads. I find when you need to wear them full time for incontinence it just makes it more comfortable. They have different cuts and styles so definitely check them out!

33 year old female. 5'7" 155lbs. I take 60mg of fluoxetine and 1 loratadine daily.
Starting March 18th I had fatigue/headache, just feeling unwell and I noticed both of my feet were numb. I thought I had pinched a nerve or just sat on them funny, but the pins and needles feeling has remained constant since then. The general sick feeling went away and I was just trying to ignore my feet.
Then May 1st I started feeling sick again. Headaches, major fatigue, sore throat, cough. I went to my PCP on May 3rd. I tested negative for covid and strep. She also ran blood work - CMP (nonfasting), Vitamin B12, TSH, CBC, and magnesium, everything came back normal. She also did a general exam with reflexes and whatnot. Since nothing showed on the bloodwork, she referred me to a neurologist for the feet neuropathy.
I have to wait until the end of September to see a neurologist, but I'm still feeling quite ill. I've burned through all my sick days.
The last few days I've been having a constant headache, fatigue, sore throat, lack of appetite, nausea and some dizziness, no fever, however, I have been living on Tylenol.
On May 13th I went to my doctor's office, my PCP was not in, the PA I saw said she thought I had an upper respiratory infection and prescribed me doxycycline. She said I had a little drainage in my left ear that may be causing the vertigo. She also said my B12 was on the low side of normal, so she recommended I try B12 supplements while we wait for the neurologist appointment.
I didn't ask for a prescription or anything. I understand antibiotics don't work for viruses.
Do you think antibiotic actually going to help my headache/fatigue/sore throat or is this their way of getting me out of the office?
Thanks.

My job occasionally involves a lot of phone time during busy seasons. It's a busy time of year for me. I have strep throat, therefore no voice today, so I called out sick. I hardly call out because I hate the feeling of my team being short handed, but today I knew something was wrong and went to the doctor to confirm I have strep throat. Less than an hour into my "work day," my coworker who has almost 3 years worth of experience covering me decided to call and ask me how to do my job. She's stressed out that she has to cover my job today. Every time I need a day off she calls me texts me about problems I encounter every day and I end up handling it behind the scenes so she doesn't look dumb, I feel like she is kinda "riding my coattails" a lot of the time. I have gone on vacation and done some of my job remotely because she couldn't handle it. But when she has called out sick and I've covered for her I message her "get well soon" and don't bother her anymore. I let her recover. So why, WHY, is it acceptable for her to call and bother me about my job during my absence? Today I put my foot down and replied "I am not being paid to work today, I'm very sick and need rest. I'm sorry I can't help you." And I still feel guilty and like the biggest A-Hole on planet earth.
Edited to add: Turning my phone off while I'm home sick and my kids are at school is not an option.

I know that ‘immoral’ doesn’t quite cover it.
It isn’t as though I awoke one morning and decided that was the Thursday I was going to roll out of bed and become a piece of shit. I didn’t pull on last year’s trainers and make a pact with myself that my bank balance would triple because I was going to become a ghost-hunting scam artist, greasing my endless lies with snake oil. But it doesn’t matter, not really. Karma came for me in a big way, and it was deserved.
We gained a bit of a niche following online, nothing to write home about but we made our money from donations and of course, the cold hard cash from the people we sucked the life out of. I won’t bore with fine details, but we ghostbusted nineteen homes before we reached the Whistlebys. With each home, we bought more equipment to really add credence to the whole wraith-wrangler thing. We turned creaky floorboards into demons, water tank leaks into internet views. It was fun, until it wasn’t.
I’d never met a family quite like them.
The others, they were young couples afraid of whistling wind, old singles desperate for validation that their home wasn’t heavy with the weight of vengeful spirits. It was easy, muscle memory. But the Whistlebys - god, they were terrified. Young parents and two children with their family dog, cowering in the corner when we set up for our bullshit interview. The daughter was so pale she seemed to sink into the walls behind her, face gaunt and eyes haunted. It was her we latched onto as we probed, stifling excited smirks with our palms.
“He never leaves,” she whispered, staring through us as if we weren’t really there. If her eyes glimmered once, they certainly didn’t now; lost and soulless as she gazed into the abyss. It was Adam who managed to coax the words from her lips, voice soft as he gently probed.
“Who is he? We have plenty of equipment here to find him in whatever corner he’s hiding, we just need to know as much as you can tell us.”
A wry smile made its way onto her lips as she finally looked at Adam, voice low and deliberate. “You don’t need to find him. You’ll know where he is, I promise. He walks on the ceiling and crawls down the walls. He’ll find you.”
The young girl’s mum spoke suddenly, eyes full of tears. “She didn’t used to speak this way,” she breathed, gaze darting around the room, “She’s so tired. So tired. She doesn’t sleep anymore, it doesn’t let her.”
Jonah stood up then, grinning as he clutched his camera for dear life. “Ma’am, don’t you worry for a second, you’re in the right hands. We’ll find out what your visitor wants, and we’ll cast him right outta here. You have my word.”
His word meant nothing, but they didn’t need to know that. The fear in their aura was palpable, it was as if they had their own pulsing circle of gravity sucking the life from the room. Their dread did something foreign to me: it made me nervous. In all the nighttime giggling and masquerading in people’s homes, I’d never been scared. To do this job was to know that ghosts were as real as fairies in whimsical tales, it was to laugh at the notion. But during that interview, I wasn’t laughing. The girl’s eyes were black holes, and they looked like they’d sucked her soul out long ago. So, with the image of those eyes burned into my retinas, we did what we did best. 11 pm rolled around and with the family booked into a hotel, it was showtime.
“Show yourself, demon!” Jonah lunged through the front door as nighttime blanketed the house in darkness, hauling our masses of equipment through. We didn’t need any of it, obviously, but it made people feel as though we were legitimately expelling ghosts from their homes with the flick of a battered crucifix.
Adam rolled his eyes, glancing down at the EMF reader in his hand. “Bro, come on. Did you see how scared that girl was? I feel a little bad.”
“Shit, she was creepy,” Jonah chomped on his gum, leaving muddy boot stains as he clambered up on the sofa to stick his camera to the wall, “He walks on the ceiling. Dude must have the mother of all headaches.”
I stayed quiet, chewing my lip as I set up our audio equipment and eyed the tired-looking lump of plastic. The older it looks, the more authentic it appears Jonah had assured me, and sure, I supposed it did look like it belonged in a 1998 horror game, but it was pretty shit. Not that we’d ever picked up anything on it before - there was the great scare of house 12 when the fridge appeared to hum a lilting tune, but it was just super broken.
“Right,” Jonah jumped downwards, nearly knocking over the coffee table, “Plan is Megan Donovan is leaving the house party you guys didn’t wanna go to at like 2 am. I say we wrap up here by 1 am, swing by the party and I’ll be her shoulder to cry on because her douchebag boyfriend was a dick again all night.”
Adam scowled as Jonah cackled but I stayed mute, casting my eyes around the room. I couldn’t deny this place felt different, somehow. Even with all the lights dancing across the house, there sat an empty, tepid coldness that seemed to seep through the walls. There was no warmth here, no safety. Loving family photos littered the room, but somehow it felt barren. Wrong.
“I’m down to do this quickly, at least,” Adam muttered, eyes darting around nervously, “You guys feel that? Place feels…”
“Haunted?” I finished for him, rolling my eyes at Jonah’s guffaws.
“Alright, if you’re both gonna be pussies, I’ll get started,” he stared ominously into our main camera placed across the room, red light blinking towards the sofa we were sitting on, “It’s time, everyone. As always, first, we’ll try to contact the ghost, and see if we pick up anything on the microphone or the EMF.”
Clearing his throat, Adam stole a glance at me. “Uh, okay. We’re here in your domain, ghost,” he tried to project but I heard the slight crack in his voice, “We’re here to find out what you want, why you haunt this family. We’re here to set you free.”
I counted down from six, bulging my eyes as I shrieked, throwing myself backwards. “No way,” I bellowed, pointing off camera, “There’s no way!”
And we did the usual scramble, all of us claiming we saw a photo frame go flying, switching to shaky hand cam footage as Jonah retrieved it from the floor we laid it on earlier. It was rehearsed, but something just felt different. It’s hard to describe, but I couldn’t shake the feeling a pair of eyes were locked onto me, a horrid gaze burning into my back. The feeling amplified as we pulled out the trusty Ouija board only moments later, laying it on the table and pushing it into frame. I scratched at my arms nervously, trying not to stare at the shadows that seemed to be consuming the room.
“Alright,” Jonah muttered, placing his finger on the planchette, “I ask its name, we give it something creepy like Maurice. I’ll move it, you guys just stay still.”
“Feel free to run the show on this one,” I offered, goosebumps erupting over my skin. Had it gotten colder in here? Adam certainly thought so as he hugged his hoodie tighter, shaking something off as he placed his finger on the planchette with us. The dread was otherworldly, beginning to creep across my skin and begging me to stop.
“Spirit,” Jonah demanded, dramatically eyeing each corner of the room, “Make yourself known to us. Show us. Communicate with us! I want to ask what name gives you your power. What is your name, ghost?”
He waited a fairly believable amount of time before the planchette slowly began to move towards M, but I knew my heart wasn’t in my lacklustre reaction. Jonah would yell at me later, claiming I ruined the entire Ouija shot, but I swore I could see something in my peripheral. Just out of view, staring at me. I didn’t turn my head, didn’t dare. Instead, I gritted my teeth and focused on the board, letting my jaw drop dramatically.
M-A-U-R-I
And just like that, the planchette halted. Painfully, almost. Jonah scowled, head snapping to us. “Really?! Dude, I was nearly finished-”
“You stopped,” I argued, wondering if it was a blanket on the bookshelf or a crumpled-up man staring dead-eyed at me, as I was beginning to suspect it was.
“Just do it again,” Adam grumbled, and it wasn’t usually like this. We didn’t fight, we didn’t bite. The house felt as though it was draining the life from us, the joy. I felt physically tired, as though even being here was soul-sucking. But, as I told myself, ghosts were not real. We were not real. We were opportunistic bastards and we were leaving at 1 am.
The planchette moved to M with ease again and we forced our shock, but with less enthusiasm this time. It seemed even Jonah was struggling now, eyebrows knitted together tensely.
M-A-U-R-I-C
​
And it stopped again, but this time it jerked to the left, causing a gasp to leave Adam’s lips. “Jonah, for fuck-”
“What is your problem?” Jonah cried, looking between us as though we were crazy, “Ever since we got in here, you’ve been acting like a couple of little girls. I swear to god, if Megan-”
But his words died on his lips, because - as we all scowled at one another - the planchette yanked our waiting fingers in the opposite direction, landing on a letter.
B
“Adam, for Christ-”
​
E
​
The planchette scraped horribly against the Ouija board and I couldn’t tear my eyes away, sitting between the chaos of my friends arguing as each blamed the other, neither paying enough attention to the board. I swallowed, trying to watch for a twitch of the muscles in their fingers, some indication of which one was fucking with us.
E
But there was none. Their fingers were light, barely grazing the object jerking clumsily around the board. Adam met my eyes, trepidation lining his features. “Listen, I just want to get this shit done and get out of here. If this is you-”
L
“It isn’t,” I returned, voice lost in the sound of Jonah growling and wrenching up the planchette, launching it across the room till it hit the wall with a sickening crack. I could only stare in shock at my furious, panting friend but Adam leapt upwards, throwing his arms out in question.
“You can’t be serious! Jonah, for fuck sake, what is wrong with you?”
And they argued. Yelled, threw their arms around, ignored the room. But I couldn’t ignore the room. I hadn’t been able to ignore it from the second we’d stepped in here, the atmosphere wrapping around my throat from the very first second we’d dared. And they weren’t seeing it, but I was. The blanket in the corner of the room, hanging limply from the figure underneath it. Tall, impossibly tall, shrouded in shadow and with the fabric sagging off it horribly.
“Shut up,” I whispered to the boys next to me, but they didn’t stop. They didn’t stop as the blanket began to drag closer towards us, the sound of toenails scraping on the floor echoing louder than even my friends. I could see the silhouette underneath it, the darkness that followed. The cold. But they didn’t notice, not until a screech sounded, sending our eyes all in the direction of the bleeping monstrosity.
“Fuck,” Adam cried, shaking his head at the EMF detector which was flashing a bloody red colour and wailing to attention. I was only distracted momentarily from the carnage, turning around in time to feel a horrid whoosh of air as the blanket fell into a crumpled heap a mere inch from my nose, dropping to my feet. The air was sucked from my lungs as I tumbled backwards, collapsing on the sofa and gasping instead of forming words. Adam looked upon me with concern, but Jonah was done.
“Nah,” he growled, wincing at the wail of the EMF machine, “Listen, I’m not doing this all over again. Come here, let’s do something with this godforsaken thing. Grab it, wave it around, just fucking get up.”
My eyes were still darting around the room and only pulled from their trance as a buzzing fly landed on my hand, narrowly avoiding death with the flick of my shaking finger. It woke me up, my voice sounding more strained than I would’ve liked. “Are you hearing that? It’s detecting something, Jonah, I swear to god I saw-”
“Faulty microwave, shitty electrics, I don’t know,” his voice raised threateningly, “Seriously, stop. Let’s leave the room and run in, we’ll act shocked about the EMF, we’ll walk around a bit, and then we’re going. I’m sick of you both.”
I should’ve argued. Obviously, I should’ve argued. But I can’t describe the way I felt in that moment - it was as though my fear gave way to denial so quickly that I was already calling myself crazy, reaching desperately for the idea that no, I was seeing things. Feeling things. As though I needed to prove to myself that I was crazy, and the horrors my mind was conjuring simply couldn’t exist.
So I stayed.
I stayed as the three of us trudged out of the living room, as we all pulled our clothes tighter and ignored the ice seeping into our skin. I ignored Adam squeezing my shoulder, a sentiment he’d never bothered with before. I ignored my thudding heart as we clutched our cameras, bursting into the living room in our most epic movie yet, ready to contort our faces in horror.
But we didn’t have to fake it.
In the corner was our screaming EMF reader, blinking red as it had been for the last 5 minutes. But the problem was the endless claws wrapped around it, attached to a figure so tall its head brushed the ceiling and black eyes glared upon us. It swayed in the shadows but I could see its arms, gaunt and as long as its legs, neck cracking awfully as it turned to look at us in an instant. A sick dripping sounded just loud enough for us to hear, and to this day, I imagine it as thick, crimson blood falling from its fingers onto its dead, curled toes.
“Holy shit,” Adam whispered, so I knew in fact, I hadn’t lost my mind. We ran, of course. Scared idiots launching themselves backwards and tripping over everything, legs jelly as we bolted for the front door. I cursed myself for not leaving more quickly, begged for a time machine to have me believe my eyes the first time. We didn’t make it. There in the hallway was our 1998 horror movie audio device, except now it was crackling and a rasp sounded from it, too deep and gravelly to be human. Layers of voices sounded at once, so distorted I could barely make them out.
“I smell your blood,” it rasped, the voice touching me so closely I could practically feel it inside of me, “I’ll suck it out of your veins and wear your skin.”
And then, before there was time to react, every lightbulb in the house smashed at once. I know, because I heard the shards hit the floor in every room. Cried out as pure darkness filled the space, leaving me with no idea where my friends were and if they even existed anymore.
“The door won’t fucking open!” Adam screeched from my right, audibly jamming the handle, “It won’t open!”
“Where’s the crucifix?” Jonah begged, and I could hear the tears in his voice, “Adam, where?!”
But now it was only footsteps we heard. Not slow ones. Thudding, loud footsteps, gaining pace and getting louder and louder, till it sounded like something was running at us. But the sound didn’t come from the floor. With the most gut-wrenching feeling of horror, I realised it was coming from the ceiling.
“Oh my god,” Adam’s voice was below me somewhere, because he’d fallen down into a heap of fear, “What the fuck is that? What is that?!”
It was deafening, all of it. The wailing EMF detector, the rasp of crackling audio threatening to break all our bones at once, the footsteps slamming to a stop directly above my head. All leading to the moment I looked up, a silent tear disappearing in a slow trickle down my cheek.
Its body was contorted horribly as it glowered down from the ceiling, neck cracked at an unnatural angle with bones jutting out everywhere. Dead, black holes for eyes bored into mine, hell radiating from them in such a way that I was knocked to the floor by the sheer force of it. Rows of razor teeth were pulled back into a horrific grin, stretching much in the way its wings did as they grazed the ceiling, reams of liquid trickling from them onto our heads.
Hell. Staring from above me.
My memory is hazy, and part of me thinks my brain tried to erase the trauma to give myself half a chance to go on with my life. I remember Jonah being lifted into the air with such a guttural wail that I’ve never heard a sound like it since. Remember the sound of his bones crackling as we ran, making straight for the living room. We threw furniture at the window, and ignored the thud of Jonah’s lifeless body being hurled at us, hitting the wall with a sick crack.
I know we got out. I felt its eyes burning from behind me as our skin snagged on glass, as we sprinted into the hammering rain, screaming for any help we could find. When the paramedics came, most of Jonah’s leg had already been eaten, the remains nowhere to be found. He woke up six days later, screaming bloody murder. Screams he kept up till he was sedated, only reducing to a whimpering wail the third time they woke him up.
The bottom floor of the house was destroyed, along with everything in it. Our equipment crushed; all evidence of our horrors erased other than the haunted look in Adams’s eyes and the nightmares that still wake me at 3 am. Wild animals tore the leg from an unconscious Jonah, the local police said. We were just idiots holding a seance in a house, leaving the backdoor open to all manner of wild animals as we partied ourselves silly. At first, they thought we trashed the house, but the Whistlebys assured the police that no, it simply wasn’t the case. This had happened before, they told them, we were just caught in the crossfire. They gave their statement that night, protested our innocence, then packed their bags.
They never left.
Their little girl went missing that night, right before they could flee. Her suitcase sat in her room, untouched, and that house became a sad legend on those streets, spoken about in hushed tones. I left town but something inside it never left me. We don’t speak of it, the three of us. We left, and when we meet, that night exists as the elephant in the room, Jonah’s scarred stump reminding us that we didn’t imagine the entire thing as a collective fever dream.
So I left, lived my life. Started going to church, took up cricket. And when I hear the sound of thudding footsteps hammering along the ceiling of my hallway in the dead of night, I pull the covers over my head and pray to every god that may or may not exist that I’ll live another day. It takes such a long time to pick up all 104 crucifixes off the floor the next morning, but for the life of me, I’ll never stop doing it.

Some info: 22F, currently taking prescribed lithium, birth control, and perindiprol for over two years History of high blood pressure, and mood disorder (both stabilised for a long time)
About 7 months ago I started getting extreme fatigue and generally feeling unwell to the point where tasks such as hygiene had to be spaced out over days instead of all being able to be done in one day as usual, I felt like I couldn't get off the couch because I was so physically exhausted. I started losing my appetite around that time too and felt sick eating.
I went to the doctor in January because forcing myself to get up wasn't working and I was offered antidepressants. I said I didn't want to go on them because I knew this wasn't an issue with depression as I've experienced it in the past and my mood was still perfectly fine. Blood test results came back and they had slightly high iron (resolved by itself) and slightly low vitamin D.
I then started getting a stabbing pain right undedirectly next to the bottom of my left rib. This wasn't constant, but it was multiple times a day and extremely painful, when it wasn't there it was usually an ache. I also started getting short of breath very easily and when I tried to sleep I would struggle because I couldn't breathe properly (I've gotten used to how to put my pillows to make it easier now)
I went to the doctor for this in February and he ordered a chest X ray which came back with "unknown densities in the lungs" and prescribed me antibiotics which didn't work and I went back which he prescribed another round with penicillin free which didn't work.
Around this time the lymph nodes under my jaw started swelling. After about a couple of weeks, more started swelling in my neck and on my collarbones which were smaller ones.
I started having a low grade fever for an extended period of time and I went to the doctor in early April and asked about my lymph nodes where he did an examination and checked all of them except what was in my collarbones. I got an ultrasound which said they were most likely reactive in origin and to repeat in three months if not resolved.
I went back to the doctor last week and ordered a blood test again hoping I could at least find what's wrong to fix it and asked for a test for EBV which my bloods said that everything is okay and EBV was a previous infection.
Throughout this whole experience I feel like my doctor isn't listening to me because he keeps cutting me off and disregarding the majority of what I have to say which I don't understand because I've seen him since I was 14 and have never come with an issue like this before. He's been a really good doctor in the past, but at the moment it feels like I'm just being rushed. For example, the first time I had gone for the blood test, he told me if it comes back fine I'm just being a sook. Or when I tried to explain that I was having pains, he cut me off to say that he didn't ask what type of pain I was feeling and ignored what I was saying all together.
At this point I am still have extreme fatigue, it feels like something is pressing on my throat, I'm still short of breath with chest pains and a dry cough, my lymph nodes have gotten bigger and have moved to my right armpit, still getting that pain under my ribs, and I've lost 15kg (was slightly overweight, still in the healthy weight range)
I don't really know where to go from here and it all feels a bit hopeless, so I was wondering if there's anything I can do to make this better or figure out what's going on so I can get it treated. It's really hard and I don't think I'm being taken seriously, but I have to deal with this 24/7 and it's really hard.
Any advice would really be appreciated, thank you :)

On Monday, I developed a really nasty sore throat. After struggling to swallow and sleep for two days with the pain and a high fever, I went to see a nurse practitioner at my GP practice on Wednesday (impossible to see an actual GP there). I said I was coming in to check if it wasn't strep throat or something else nasty and she said it sounded like it might be and gave me penicillin V.
After taking it, the sore throat decreased almost entirely but the fever (at one point around 39°C) and fatigue remained, though in constant flux. I also developed a cough, lost my appetite and began to feel very bloated despite having barely ate anything, particularly on the left hand side of my abdomen. On top of all this, on Friday, a rash appeared on my torso and spread very quickly down my extremities. I also developed a white hairy tongue coating. I called NHS 111 and they told me to get to A and E urgently. I got to A and E urgently and the doctor urgently told me to take some antihistamine as the rash was "just probably the infection mixing with the antibiotic or maybe a reaction" and then sent me on my way.
I wasn't too happy with this explanation, so yesterday I called 111 again and they told me to go to my local pharmacist to have a look. I was planning on going but my mom rang and told me she had arranged an appointment with a private GP that she'd been to before, the appointment being within the hour. Out of desperation, I went along and the private GP looked at my throat and said "nah looks viral to me" and said I had mono which was causing the rash by reacting to the penicillin and that I should stop taking it.
He took bloods and sent them off and as I was coming back home, the local pharmacist called (having been notified by 111) and said that they thought I had scarlet fever and that I should keep taking the penicillin. When I told her that I'd just been told to stop, she said "Oh, well maybe you should then." I called up the private GP and was like "you haven't got scarlet fever, don't worry" before calling me back a few minutes later saying "I've had a chat with the doctors and just on the safe side keep taking the penicillin."
Now today, I have kept taking the penicillin and the rash has spread to my neck and face but looks lighter elsewhere but I'm still getting mad spikes in temperature and this ache in my left side is growing a bit. My chest feels a little heavy and I'm coughing much more. I'm so fatigued and weak but I can barely eat more than a few mouthfuls of anything. I also got the private blood test results back and they came back that I don't have mono but apparently I do have a virus because my white blood cells are low but that I should keep taking he penicillin. He also said my liver is healthy but my AST is 101 and my LDH 348 and Gamma GT 84.
Aiming to get a GP appointment tomorrow but I'm having a real flap atm. Was feeling slightly better this morning but now I can barely move without aching or breath without coughing. What the hell have I got?
29M, 171cm, 58kg, Penicillin V 250mg, don't drink or smoke.

This is gonna be a long one, so apologies in advance. I have no one else to talk to.
I have strep throat, was at the ER last night for it and feel like I’m dying. I haven’t been able to eat anything solid in over 2 days now. Never mind that I was also at the ER twice with my daughter on Monday bc she face planted and really hurt her mouth. Then at the dentist with her twice for follow up appointments. Oh and she’s of course super clingy so she’s sleeping with me bc she’s been in so much pain so I haven’t really been able to sleep in about a week. All this while I work full time and do way more than my fair share of everything else to keep this family and house upright.
Then there’s my amazing husband. Who is unemployed at the moment and has been for a month, who was “so sick” this past week that he laid down almost nonstop in bed from Wednesday-Saturday and couldn’t do anything (he doesn’t have strep, not congested, no fever, etc). And amazingly all his sickness started as soon as I told him I was getting an annoying tickle in my throat. So I’ve had to do everything for the kids while wanting to die this week stressing my voice and throat out in meetings and with the kids all week.
Last night at the ER I texted him an update and told him I had strep and I had to get a steroid shot and antibiotics before coming home. He said “that sucks” and then Happy Mother’s Day after that. At 11:30 PM so it’s not even fucking Mother’s Day.
Today, absolutely nothing. Not even trying to be even remotely nice to me or the kids. I had to do laundry bc ours was overflowing and I had no underwear left. When I put a load in, he comes into the room and asks me why I didn’t ask him to do laundry bc it’s Mother’s Day. Then proceeds to make me feel like absolute shit for doing a load bc I needed underwear and he’s still so sick that he’s laying on the couch nonstop giving attitude to the kids. Same with our dishes. They hadn’t been done in a couple days and we’re starting to smell. I started emptying the dishwasher and he does the same thing. Comes in with attitude and says he “was about to do that”. Empties the dishwasher, puts 2 dirty plates in then leaves it like that and goes to lay back down in the living room. So I just finished it and he got upset.
Not even a fucking single flower or thank you for everything you do or ANYTHING. I’ve cried by myself today in the shower and now as I locked myself in our bedroom to try to get a few minutes rest. I literally only feel like I’m useful if I have sex with him. But he wants me to want it all the time with absolutely no reciprocating. I’m so freaking sad today.
Sorry for the long rant. There’s more but I don’t have the strength to type more and I just want to sleep. I hope everyone else had a nice Mother’s Day. We all deserve it so much more than anyone gives us credit for.

EDIT: Since someone asked for a TLDR I've added one::: Please understand there is a lot of information to have to compact here which I do not believe can accurately fit into a short TLDR but here goes.
TLDR: I had repeated strep throat infections resulting in over a months worth of constant antibiotics. I asked (ex) bf to please get a test for it as well. He refused and seemed angry. Ghosted me for 3 days then came back calling me self-centered. I tried to reason with him and figure out what his point of view is but instead he ghosted me for 3 days before finally saying he was too busy to reply due to work and stressful job changes. We talked a bit and returned to regular conversation for the following 3 weeks. He came over to stay after going to an event together then left suddenly and despite him previously saying we'd spend golden week together. He has since ignored me for another week.
:::UPDATE::: I have my house key back. He came to my house to give it back and we had a small chat about wtf has been up with him. Unsurprisingly he didn't have reasons for things. Only saying suddenly going on dates costs too much money ( I always offer to pay but he insists he has to) and that his job change is too stressful. Therefore we "no longer match". Whatever the hell that means. He also gave weak excuses that we didn't match because I like gardening and he doesn't and then proceeds to say my clothing and the fact I wear makeup doesn't suit 'his' style. Srsly fuck this guy. We parted ways and he was unable to clearly say we're broken up saying he's got a lot to think about. He can go think all he wants but for me obviously it's over. He suddenly sent me a few random messages last night about starting his new job early and how he's got an exam to take in October. Least to say I didn't reply as I see no point and fail to see what he is trying to achieve.
Thank you everyone for your comments and support !!! This whole event has triggered anxiety attacks for me but I'm receiving treatment for that. The doctor also believes after I have finished my recent 2 week course of mild antibiotics I should be cleared of strep throat. It's been a long journey. ‐--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd like to start off with I'm a big fan of the podcast and I hope that posting here will help me organize my feelings and perhaps make me see things a different way.
::Warning:: This make take some time to get into the T. Please bare with me and thank you
Starting off I'd like to make it clear that prior to this incident nothing in our relationship seemed out of place. We talked often and despite our busy work schedules would try to meet up atleast once every week or two weeks to spend time together.
About a month ago now, I (30F) was diagnosed with severe strep throat that has reoccured 3 times. Each time I start to get sick the glands in my throat swell up like golf balls so bad that I look like a croaking toad. Swelling and aside it's often accompanied by high fevers close to 40°c (104F). This resulted in trips to the hospital where I was misdiagnosed (This is not uncommon where I live, but that's a separate story) and I ended up just suffering through until my regular doctors clinic would open. During this time my (ex) boyfriend (32M) stood by my side looking after me, changing my cooling pads and made sure my temperature didn't go higher even going so far to take time off his jobs (he has 2) just to look after me through my fevers.
All things seems to be fine again as I began to recover while on antibiotics from my regular doctor. The following weekend we were to meet up for a date and he chose Mt Yoshino, a very popular spot from cherry blossom viewing. I ask him atleast 3 different times if he was sure he'd like to go there as the hike up the mountain is fairly significant. Before we left to go on the trip I checked one last time as I didn't think his shoes were the most suitable, nor his white loose fit pants (as they could get stained) He said there were no issues and we proceeded with the trip. Despite me pre-warning him that it was a long and very uphill hike he solidered on and he later admitted that perhaps he hadn't made the best choice for our date this time. I reassured him that I don't mind at all because I enjoying being around nature and walking and that I'd done this hike once before. He stayed over that evening and everything seemed perfectly fine.
UNTIL
Wednesday morning disaster stuck again as I was hit by swelling and high fevers again. I again went to the doctors to have a check up and was told I have strep again (still) and they would be trying a different course of antibiotics. I was pretty distraught by this as also asked my (ex) boyfriend to please get a test as well. I was worried because he'd spend a lot of time looking after me maybe he'd caught it. He refused and then coldly said "I'm too busy" I replied saying I was worried and to please get one and I'm sorry if it upset him by asking him to also take the test.
This is where I was met with his first ever instance of him ghosting me. Over the 3 days he ghosted me I kept my messages to a minimum trying to accept that he might just need some time to cool off. I thought what I had asked him to do was not so completely unreasonable given how strep throat can easily spread and carriers exists as well.
Well his silence broke 3 days later. He said "I'm not angry. I just think you're being self centered"
I WAS SHOCKED !
I proceeded to try and ask him why he felt that way but he wouldn't give a clear answer. He only said that we shouldn't meet until I'm better because that's how we should deal with infectious diseases. I thought his words and behavior were strange and I tried to explain that by asking him to get a test was I in no way blaming him. It was just a precaution.
He then went SILENT for another day or so and came back said " Sorry my job isn't going well as it's commission based and I have a lot of concerns" He then went on to say again that I was a bit selfish and finished off with this gem a line like Spidermans Uncle "You are free to choose your actions, but with freedom comes responsibility."
At this point I tried not to feel angry since he is showing signs of deep stress. I pointed out that I am here for him and I'd like to support him in anyway I can and that I'm worried about the continous stress his job and my sickness has caused him. I suggested we have a proper sit down and talk so he can express how he's feeling better.
:::: At this point I should mention while I speak English my (ex) boyfriend does not. Therefore we usually converse in Japanese. However, for some reason druning this conversation he chose to use what i assumed was a translation app:::
I also tried to ask him how can I make him feel more comfortable. Did he need more space apart to relax and think. Or had I been asking him to help too much recently. I let him know I'm eternally grateful for everything he's done for me and with me over the past 6 months.
His reply came saying " You told me I should go to the hospital, but you always didn't listen to my advice. And reading your message, I got the feeling that you were only worried about yourself."
I questioned him about this and what he meant by it. As we both know going to a hospital has not worked in the past and my current doctor is the only one who seems to be able to listen to my symptoms and prescribed medicine. I also apologized if my words had made him feel I only cared for myself. I was merely worried about his condition and mine had become so bad. He then said my comments were double standard which I couldn't understand.
The conversation continues and it feels like he's just trying to take hits at me through the messages I'll be honest gaslighting. (If anyone wants pictures I'll try find them)
It boiled eventually to me telling him he had really hurt my feelings by ignoring me for 3 days, and I understand he is stressed but if he needs to have a shutdown moment like that again to please just say I'm feeling stressed/overwhelmed and want to take some time. That in the very least is better than ghosting your partner to wonder what happend.
3 weeks passed and we reverted to somewhat regular conversation, and if I'm being completely honest, I felt that if I pushed him more on the subject he'd have further withdrawn so I tried to draw us back to a happier place. Both of us had been very busy. On top of my continuous doctors trips and different antibiotics I started a new job and was having a good time settling in and realizing my new company treated me 1000% better than what I had left.
We agreed to meet up and spend time together during golden week as he had said he had 4/27 ~ 5/6 off from work which matched almost with my schedule of 5/3 ~ 5/5 We met up during that weekend. I had chosen a meat festival even to go to nearby as he really enjoys eating BBQ and meat. We hadn't seen each other in about 3 weeks and since that initial "fight" so I could tell he looked awkward when we met up. I tried to lighten the mood and play some cute couple hand games and decide what to eat together. His mood seemed to be more relaxed and lifed after this (or perhaps he was just starving up till then, you decide) After the meat festival, we went to a firework event just a bit further out from the city. We were both taking lots of videos and pictures.
IT WAS AT THIS MOMENT that I realized since our initial conflict over the strep throat he'd be hiding his Instagram from me. I had been aware in the back of my head that for about a month I'd not seen any of his stories but had just pushed worries aside, and we'd been messaging still. It got brought to my attention more clearly as I could see him posting to his story which I couldn't view. I turned to him at this stage and tried to casually ask him about it.
Me " Hey I can't seem to view your Instagram posts" Him passive but awkward face Me " did you block me or something?" I asked jokingly as I knew he hadn't. Him "No it's just difficult to explain" Me: "I'll do my best to understand " Him: "No, it's difficult"
Least to say that small pit on anxiety I'd been feeling for 3 weeks sent me sick to my stomach. I tried to reassure myself maybe he's just tired or is being considerate of my language ability. But it continued to nag at my gut as to what possible reason he could have anyway to start hiding it since our initial "fight" 3 weeks ago.
After the fireworks finished we went back to my house for a few last drinks and to go to sleep. The whole night I remember tossing and turning awake because he was wanting to initiate s#x and I was just so exhausted I didn't want any. ( I've mentioned this to him several time that there's nothing wrong I'm just extremely tired and want to sleep first, which he has normally accepted) He got what he wanted in the morning anyway once we were both awake and fairly well rested.
As it was my impression that we had the whole weekend together I said I wanted to go to the home center to get some things for my garden and I'd like a bit of help getting rid of some spiders and this giant 2m thistle that was posing dangers to the road below.
At the home center, I noticed he did not seem enthusiastic at all. I asked him twice if he was okay, was he feeling stressed? That we could go if he didnt like it here and I'm happy to carry the basket and head to the counter . He kept insisting he was fine despite the growing discontent on his face. I tried to quickly finish up and pay as per past experiences over the last 3- 4 weeks he is not wiliing to express his feelings to me.
We arrived back at my house and I asked him if he'd like a break or some lunch. He simply said he was fine and proceeded to sit in the house entryway while I freed the plants from their bags. He stayed sitting down until I asked him for help with a few weeds as I tackled some bigger tree cuttings. He worked for 5-10 minutes before saying he'd sit down for a break. He took a break for 45mins and didn't speak to me, just kept looking down at his phone watching videos or tiktoks. As I was finishing up putting the biggest plant in the ground he suddenly announced he's be going home to shower. I said he's more than welcome to use the one in my house but he continued with wanting to do laundry and play games at home to relax. I became upset by this as it was my understanding we'd be spending golden week together and 50min for some much needed gardening wouldn't be a problem ( if anyone asks, yes he knew I wanted to do a bit of gardening and cleaning up before he came to stay) I finally asked for his help with this 2m long thistle and then I'd walk him back to the station. The whole walk back he just continued to ask if I was angry. At the time I replied yes because he was going home so suddenly.
When we said goodbye at the station, you could cut the tension with a knife. I tried to hold back my tears as we were in public and I just felt so frustrated. We hugged and said goodbye quickly and just like that he was gone.
I felt pretty bad once I got home, and given how things had been going I had wanted to be able to give him a proper goodbye but didn't know of I'd be able to hold back tears. I sent him the following message after we parted ways
「I'm not angry. Im just feeling very lonely at the moment. I've missed seeing you these past 3 weeks. I felt very sad when we said goodbye and had the impression we'd be spending more time together. We haven't decided on when next to see each other, and Golden week is the longest holiday period for the whole year. We don't know when will see each other next. I miss you」
What are your thoughts everyone. Have I really been self centered and not properly considering his feelings? Thank you for taking the time to read all of this.
Edit: Apologies for my crappy spelling and grammar. I've tried to fix some
::::::::::Note::::::::: I feel like this has leaned a bit far from the title at this stage but I'll add that after we met up I went to to doctors again and was told I have strep throat again and am on further antibiotics
Since my last message from above was sent he has not replied and gone full ghost.
This man also has a key to my house that I'd need back
I am a New Zealand F and he is a Japanese M. If that matters to anybody.
I didn't use a throwaway account as I figured there's no possibility of him or his friends seeing this anyway and I'm feeling a bit too down in the dumps to make a separate account. I barely use this one for anything anyway
::::EDIT:::: There are a number of comments expressing concerns about stds and for me to get checked. I get checked regularly as it is the normal thing to do for one's safety. I purely just have reoccurring strep throat infections. No stds here. Thank you all the commenter's who were concerned over this.

So basically when i got a regular flu i totally stoped having dry eyes. also a few days afterwards. (for 8 days in total). Now its back to my normal dry unconfortable eyes...
●HOW IT USUALLY IS: I have really dry eyes for around 9 months. I was prescribed around 6 teardrops a day. Sure, some days are a bit better than others but overall i almost constantly feel my eyes super dry and sometimes when i blink i feel like a have 2 plastic ping pong balls instead of wet healthy eyes. I cant stay too much in front of the screen especially at the end of the day and i need many breaks from it wich really slown me down from my work. I cant even enjoy hobbies either a lot of the times. Sometimes my body feels like it just wants my eyes to be always closed, all day and all night so it can feel a bit better.
●HOW I TOTALLY GOT RID OF DRY EYES FOR 8 DAYS So pretty much it wasnt with intention, it just happened durring the time i got sick. It was the first time i got sick since I got really bad dry eyes. (It was just a mellow regular flu. A bit of an irritated throat. Some sort of laringitus). Apparently, for some reason i do not understand, (and maybe you got an explanation) i didnt have dry eyes sympthoms while i got a regular flu and in the first days afterwards. I had a bit of fever in the first 2 days and a really sore throat but my nose was totally normal and even my eyes were so normal that i was shocked. I found myself on my phone and my computer almost all day without getting any tired or dry eyes, like i saw many of my friends do so seamlessly. My eyes were so good and normal during the flu and in the first days afterwards and it felt exactly like how things were before i got dry eyes. I was so happy and i enjoyed life so much better. it was a crazy switch. Unfortunately after my state and health stabilised and i stoped taking flu medicamentation my dry eyes came back...and came back really strong too. I barely could work on anything in some days. I just had to keep my eyes closed or do stuff outside to ease the feeling.
So the possible reasons...are many..and i dont know wich one is it and i do not understand how it works BUT my theory and from how i felt my body, it was either from the flu itself, from the medicamentation (i just took a lot of vitamins and stuff for a sore throat. I was taking around 6 vitamin pills a day. Also i took Nurofen and Paracetamol around 3 times a day for the fever itself) or from the fact that my sleep schedgule changed while my energy levels changed and fluctuated. (Not necesseraly in better or worse, it just changed. It was different. I was tired sometimes, just like now, but it was a different kind of tired, a more pleasent one if that makes any sense). I also of course drank a lot of water, tea and soup, all together almost everyday and i paused my regular treatment for ovary chist. Also at the end of the flu i spit out a bit of dark blood from my throat and i had dry blood inside of my nose one morning.
Thats pretty much all the context. I am a junior architect and im desperate to find a good long therm solition to totally get rid of my dry eyes so i can be more productive with my life again. I just wanted to share this experience to maybe help you somehow in trying to figure out what the hell is going on lol.

Height: 160cm
Weight: 63kg
Age: 24
Sex assigned at birth: Female
Geographic region(s) your ancestors are from: Azerbaijan, central Europe.
Medications: For anxiety: Escitalopram and sometimes Alprazolam ( I always had a comically high tolerance for this). To help with allergy symptoms: OTC: diphenhydramine antihistamine
Simplified Symptoms list:
Mouth burn, brain burning, sight issues with two eyes but not with one. Muscle pain, joint pain. Vertigo. My blood pressure dropped to 105 and gets to 90 when I move a lot. My pulse went up to 75-80. Usual body temperature at 35. Need a lot of sleep. Front change makes pain worse ( can't move. I would burn in the building) Taking actice charcoal is good for symptoms but I can feel it go through my intestines.
Health background :
I have always been an anxious kid, so that might worsened many problems I had. I got Escitalopram three years ago. My anxiety is better now. Sometimes I still take Alprazolam when shit hits the fan or if a symptom could be anxiety induced. I always had a very high intolerance for Alprazolam, so it just takes the edge off.
When I was a kid I had a problem with breathing through my nose, but it was said to be probably because of my adenoid. When I was nine, my adenoid was removed. I was sick a lot and my nose bled a lot. After the surgery, the problems stopped. And never got a fever after that.
Background of Symptoms -
Ruled out: Hashimoto, Thyroid issues, blood clot issue. Depression. Mcas. Mcas testing: I had a leukocita mediator production and cytokin test and it was negative. Western blotting was also negative. Anemia perniciosa, imunoblot, intrinsic factor, negative. ASCA IgA ELISA higher (norm: <20 value: 24) ASCA IgG ELISA high (norm <20, value: 84) C-KIT D816V mutation negative.
The mouth burning started when I was little. Hazelnuts, walnuts, banana, peach, pineapple, tomato, toothepaste. It felt like nettle and the mosqito bites that I am also allergic to.
Around when I was twelve, I got very strong stomach aches from time to time, and eating also became a chore. Digesting started tohurt. Couldn’t drink carbonated drinks. I mainly drank water from then on, or tea. Didn't matter what I did, my tongue has been white since then and I had a bad breath too. I didn’t develop an ED, I just felt less and less until I either cried or felt nothing. I became very introverted and preferred not to be around people. My memory became worse and studying got difficult. My grades got worse, but I just spent more time studying. I became more and more tired, although I slept more and more. Even if I did many sports, I still had a very bad stamina.
Before high school, I got pneumonia. I had a low fever for one day. I felt like I had liquid in my lungs for two weeks, but other than that, I had no problem. ( I got medicine for pneumonia.) I still don’t have a good function of my lungs which make me weak at keeping a normal tone at all times. Singing is impossible. I can’t control the amount of air out of my throat. When I eat ice cream, I cough up mucus afterwards always.
I got to high school, and my memory got worse. I lost months, had no idea why I am no longer friends with some people, and what happened. I was a great note-taker tho and religiously never missed school. My grades got worse as highschool went on. My anxiety was through the roof too. My parents noticed nothing because I had little to no relationship with them. My body hurt, eating hurt, my head hurt. I was either crying or felt nothing. I wanted to die so bad. The only thing that kept me alive was an invisible force tying my hand. At the end of high school, I realized I couldn’t die. I won’t die. In the meantime, my body temperature went from 36 to 35. I changed many thermometer, but it's the same.
At the beginning of university, I got glasses. I had a very low level of astigmatism in one eye. Separately, I can see well. Together not so much. I always have the problem that I can’t see the text, but I can read it. I also realized that I didn’t see in 3D without glasses. Guess that is why I am good at drawing.
I went through university counting every step I took from my bed, to back to my bad after a day. By the third year of university, I got an allergic reaction to something (that looked like Crohn's symptoms, red nodules) and got antihistamine medicine. On antihistamine, I realized that I couldn’t breathe through my nose right until then. We never figured out the problem, but I was on antihistamine for a year. Then I went to the doctor. I got an allergy test and tested positive for tomato, milk protein, egg protein, capsicum, wasp sting, Camille, nettle, and hazelnuts. It wasn’t the shock kind of allergy, just allergy. The doctor said nothing, but to leave those foods. Never saw her again. I stopped these foods, and after leaving milk and eggs, I went through a personality change. I had feelings for the first time in a long time. Until then I just mimicked everyone's emotions, but then I got my own ones. I liked different clothes, different songs, different everything. I became more social, but although I felt like waking up from a ten-year-long coma, my parents didn’t understand what changed. I had bigger problems tho. It felt like I lost ten years of my life. I had to relearn how to cook, how to exist, how to deal with emotional issues. I had lost so many memories from the last ten years that I couldn’t access. When I eat eggs, I revert to the previous mindset and feel like my past self. I have questions prepared for those times and get answers to important questions, like “How do you cook?”. Usually getting better from eggs in two months, so I only eat eggs by accident. It is usually breathing problems and muscle weakness. The antihistamine I took was loratadine, but it became useless and my breathing got difficult again. Milk usually causes rotten feeling in my sotmach and I feel numb emotionally for a few days.
While I got my allergy test, I also tested positive for iron deficiency, and then blood in my stool, although I have never seen blood. I got checked out by a gastroenterologist intimately. I had nothing that would cause my reflux, but he found an inflammation in my intestines. So I got local immunosuppressants (budesonide). That didn’t work. So, I went on steroids and then on immunosuppressants (azathioprine). It caused some problems.
I got my period at 14 and it never got periodical. I missed months, half a years usually but the ob-gyns never found anything. After a year, on azathioprine, my period stopped. I had PCOS and Insulin resistance. I am on a diet for a year now. It didn’t change anything. I felt sick the moment I got on azathioprine, but my doctor made me to be on it for one and half a year. I couldn’t eat and I slept 14 hours on average. Sleeping through days also wasn’t rare. I missed so many deadlines in university. My joints hurt so much, walking with a cane was not rare. My blood pressure got lower (around 105, if I move lot, goes down to 90) and my pulse went from 60 to 75-80. I feel vertigo a lot. At the same time, the food problems never stopped. Food still burned. My tongue was still white unless my stomach issues felt better. My headache never went away, but now it feels like it's burning like my mouth.
I found antihistamine diet, and I don't have stomach aches, although my doctor says it is probably a placebo. I stopped the immunosuppressant, 3 months ago and I very rarely have stomach problems. I try to buy natural toothpaste and it seems to be working altough it is very difficult. My tongue is rarely white. I started taking diphenhydramine antihistamine. Breathing is way better. The brain burning got better for a while, but it’s worse again. I feel like this antihistamine is loosing its strength too.
Family history - Mom: hashimoto, breast cancer ( not genetic), sister: Hashimoto, endometriosis. Maternal grandma: depression. Paternal grandma: underdeveloped uterus. Dad: two strokes.
**Other information-**Never took drugs. I never smoked, because any smoke makes me cough and unable to breathe. Also if someone cooks with some spices. I always got nauseus from alcohol, so I only drank like 2-3 times, then gave up. I use soap bars for everything, so luiqid soap is not the problem. I only have glass food containers. I don't take nicotine in any shape or form. I don't really consume coffein. I started eating cacao, so it might help with the stem cells. The proteins I can eat are: rice, wheats, oat, hemp. I can't consume omega 6 oils. I have a high fiber diet and drink 2 liters of water that I put salt in and taurin. I take vitamin C, magnesium, vitamin D, b16, b6, copper. I try to build up my stamina step by step, although it's shitty. I have a hign endurance, but my brain switches off more and more. I am on a n antihistamine diet.

cw depression and suicide attempt, but not detailed
Edit: thorough MCas testing and outcome added.
This is going to be long, but I lived it trhough, so...
Earlier medical background:
I have always been an anxious kid, so that might worsened many problems I had. I got Escitalopram three years ago. My anxiety is better now. Sometimes I still take Alprazolam when shit hits the fan or if a symptom could be anxiety induced. I always had a very high intolerance for Alprazolam, so it just takes the edge off.
When I was a kid I had a problem with breathing through my nose, but it was said to be probably because of my adenoid. When I was nine, my adenoid was removed. I was sick a lot and my nose bled a lot. After the surgery, the problems stopped. And never got a fever after that.
I never smoked, because any smoke makes me cough and unable to breathe. Also if someone cooks with some spices. I always got nauseus from alcohol, so I only drank like 2-3 times, then gave up. I use soap bars for everything, so luiqid soap is not the problem. I only have glass food containers. I don't take nicotine in any shape or form. I don't really consume coffein. I started eating cacao, so it might help with the stem cells.
Medical history:
Since I was little, many food felt like it is burning my mouth. Like it’s eating it away. The main problem was pepper because that bothered the adults the most. It hurt when something had haselnuts, walnuts, banana, pineapple, peach, Tomato, capsicum in it and toothpaste. Toothpaste is the worst. Chili is a different kind of pain. I showed allergy to nettle and mosquito bites since I was little. The pain in my mouth and what these allergies caused were very similar.
Around when I was twelve, I got very strong stomach aches from time to time, and eating also became a chore. Digesting hurt. I couldn’t drink carbonated drinks. I mainly drank water from then on, or tea. Didn't matter what I did, my tongue has been white since then and I had a bad breath too. I didn’t develop an ED, I just felt less and less until I either cried or felt nothing. I became very introverted and preferred not to be around people. My memory became worse and studying got difficult. My grades got worse, but I just spent more time studying. I became more and more tired, although I slept more and more. Even if I did many sports, I still had a very bad physique.
Before high school, I got pneumonia. I had a low fever for one day. I felt like I had liquid in my lungs for two weeks, but other than that, I had no problem. ( I got medicine for pneumonia.) I still don’t have a good function of my lungs which make me weak at keeping a normal tone at all times. Singing is impossible. I can’t control the amount of air out of my throat. When I eat ice cream, I cough up mucus afterwards always.
I got to high school, and my memory got worse. I lost months, had no idea why I am no longer friends with some people, and what happened. I was a great note-taker tho and religiously never missed school. My grades got worse as highschool went on. My anxiety was through the roof too. My parents noticed nothing because I had little to no relationship with them. My body hurt, eating hurt, my head hurt. I was either crying or felt nothing. I wanted to die so bad. The only thing that kept me alive was an invisible force tying my hand. At the end of high school, I realized I couldn’t die. I won’t die. In the meantime, my body temperature went from 36 to 35. I changed many thermometer, but it's the same.
At the beginning of university, I got glasses. I had a very low level of astigmatism in one eye. Separately, I can see well. Together not so much. I always have the problem that I can’t see the text, but I can read it. I also realized that I didn’t see in 3D without glasses. Guess that is why I am good at drawing.
I went through university counting every step I took from my bed, to back to my bad after a day. By the third year of university, I got an allergic reaction to something (that looked like Crohn's symptoms, red nodules) and got antihistamine medicine. On antihistamine, I realized that I couldn’t breathe through my nose right until then. We never figured out the problem, but I was on antihistamine for a year. Then I went to the doctor. I got an allergy test and tested positive for tomato, milk protein, egg protein, capsicum, wasp sting, Camille, nettle, and hazelnuts. It wasn’t the shock kind of allergy, just allergy. The doctor said nothing, but to leave those foods. Never saw her again. I stopped these foods, and after leaving milk and eggs, I went through a personality change. I had feelings for the first time in a long time. Until then I just mimicked everyone's emotions, but then I got my own ones. I liked different clothes, different songs, different everything. I became more social, but although I felt like waking up from a ten-year-long coma, my parents didn’t understand what changed. I had bigger problems tho. It felt like I lost ten years of my life. I had to relearn how to cook, how to exist, how to deal with emotional issues. I had lost so many memories from the last ten years that I couldn’t access. When I eat eggs, I revert to the previous mindset and feel like my past self. I have questions prepared for those times and get answers to important questions, like “How do you cook?”. Usually getting better from eggs in two months, so I only eat eggs by accident. It is usually breathing problems and muscle weakness. The antihistamine I took was loratadine, but it became useless and my breathing got difficult again. Milk usually causes rotten feeling in my sotmach and I feel numb emotionally for a few days.
While I got my allergy test, I also tested positive for iron deficiency, and then blood in my stool, although I have never seen blood. I got checked out by a gastroenterologist intimately. I had nothing that would cause my reflux, but he found an inflammation in my intestines. So I got local immunosuppressants (budesonide). That didn’t work. So, I went on steroids and then on immunosuppressants (azathioprine). It caused some problems.
I got my period at 14 and it never got periodical. I missed months, half a years usually but the ob-gyns never found anything. After a year, on azathioprine, my period stopped. I had PCOS and Insulin resistance. I am on a diet for a year now. It didn’t change anything. I felt sick the moment I got on azathioprine, but my doctor made me to be on it for one and half a year. I couldn’t eat and I slept 14 hours on average. Sleeping through days also wasn’t rare. I missed so many deadlines in university. My joints hurt so much, walking with a cane was not rare. My blood pressure got lower (around 105, if I move lot, goes down to 90) and my pulse went from 60 to 75-80. I feel vertigo a lot. At the same time, the food problems never stopped. Food still burned. My tongue was still white unless my stomach issues felt better. My headache never went away, but now it feels like it's burning like my mouth.
I was tested for Mcas, but it was negative. My blood was checked if I have a higher chance for blood clots, it was negative. For MCas, I had a leukocita mediator production and cytokin test and it was negative. Western blotting was also negative. Anemia perniciosa, imunoblot, intrinsic factor, negative. ASCA IgA ELISA higher (norm: <20 value: 24) ASCA IgG ELISA high (norm <20, value: 84) C-KIT D816V mutation negative.
I found antihistamine diet, and I don't have stomach aches, although my doctor says it is probably a placebo. I stopped the immunosuppressant, 3 months ago and I very rarely have stomach problems. I try to buy natural toothpaste and it seems to be working altough it is very difficult. My tongue is rarely white. I started taking diphenhydramine antihistamine. Breathing is way better. The brain burning got better for a while, but it’s worse again. I feel like this antihistamine is loosing its strength too.
I am writing, because although my stomach is better, my joints sometimes feel like there is not enough liquid for them and they hurt. Using the stairs upwards is a big problem. Sometimes I need to use a cane just for walking. When the front changes, I can’t move, because then I would want to cry from the pain. Sometimes random food also causes me to be in bad for a day or two and not being able to move. My brain feels like it’s on fire and I just want to scream and hit it into a wall.

Been sleeping A LOT this week, it’s been one giant run on nap between glasses of wine and those fuckin evil evil gummies that all but kill me but fuck it I didn’t have to work this week and no one really needed me, that was very clear. Do you remember how I would never dream before? Well in true me fashion, I dream every single night now that WE are no longer a “we”, just a you And an I
Woke up from some weird 3 hour sweaty fever dream where I had you, I saw you I fuckin felt you and your face was in my hands and I felt your beard under my finger tips and your lips on mine. So real, felt your hand squeezing on my ass when I straddled your lap I could literally feel your jeans on my thighs your kisses trailing down my throat the friction of my skin on your skin the heat the feeling of your breath on my belly the fuckkkiiinnggggg wet hot slippery sliding slickkkkkk Then I’m back in bed, alone all lone alllll one listening to fucking HAIL hitting my windows I think maybe there are sirens in the distance and I’m still thinking about you like the silly stupid little bitch I am.

Some days the clinic is full. People stream in, dealing with the chronic issues of aging, basic stuff like urinary tract infections, and sinus/throat pain.
Occasionally we see a senior for shortness of breath. They often recall months and months of symptoms, without an initial understanding of what the origin was. By the time we see them, they are so far gone that the hospital is the only place where they can be treated.
Similarly, we see patients who walk in with puffy ankles - lymphatic drainage indicative of severe cardiac complications/severe infection/cancesurgery. Off to the hospital they go, with a silent prayer. PS: Folks, if your mom, dad, granny or grandpa suddenly has fluid buildup in the legs or arms (you can test this by applying steady pressure with the tips of your fingers (no nails, please) and then observing the tissue when you lift your fingers away. If there are dimples in the tissue that remain...Whelp...time to go to the ER to get a full workup. Do not wait, do not pass go, just run them to the hospital.
We saw only one positive COVID case during the past couple of days, who had tested and was seeking a note for work. Fortunately the patient had very mild symptoms. It's a reminder that COVID is still out there. The patient had no mask - so be aware - positives can be found at your local supermarket and pharmacy. Being safe by wearing a good mask when in public indoor spaces is always the best way to prevent COVID infection.
......
The bad news: Our moment of being relatively "COVID low" has passed. Numerous counties are seeing a slight uptick, including:
Alachua
Bay
Bradford
Broward
Calhoun
Charlotte
Clay
Maimi-Dade
Hardee
Lake
Manatee
Marion
Martin
Orange
Osceola
Pasco
Pinellas
Putnam
St. Johns
Seminole
Washington
Most have only a few new cases detected in hospitals, but some like Pinellas and Pasco have jumped by 100% unexpectedly.
The totals for Florida are still reduced because all the other counties have the same or less positives:
4/26 05/03/24
2,406 2,280 ...........................
Lastly, I'd like to inform you that I have finally, officially contracted COVID.
I knew it might be inevitable considering the activities that I was persuaded to do, including:
Travel via airplane masked with goggles
Travel via car service for more than 1 hour, windows closed (masked)
Travelling via crowded Subway (masked)
Dining indoors (no mask)
Dining outdoors but in a crowded area (no mask)
Observing plant life in an extremely enclosed humid environment - a hot house with numerous tourists (masked)
Strolling in a park full of tourists (masked)
Attending a museum and exhibits absolutely stuffed full of tourists for more than 3 hours (masked)
Shopping indoors for more than 15 minutes, (masked).
My symptoms are very similar to allergies (which is what I thought it was until the fatigue and fever set in): stuffy nose, body aches, then fatigue, fever of 99.9 degrees, and now a sporadic cough. I am a little concerned that my heart rate is significantly elevated (100 when my normal is around 60-80), but this is common as the body fights viruses. My O2 is great, around 98-99.
I'm managing it well with pain relievers and nasal spray. Certainly hoping to kick it soon.
My relatives (whom I was visiting) are all very upset, considering that I had avoided a symptomatic COVID infection for more than 4 years. They knew how important it was to me, and are kicking themselves for asking me to "go out on a limb and be free for a while". I hope none of them contract it again, and that my coworkers didn't get it from me. We'll see.
The only plus from this is that I have probably contracted variant J1 or KP2, and will have some small amount of additional immunity for this year's summer spike.
Take my example as something not to do, and:
Stay Safe!

My (30F) fiancé’s (32M) friend (34M) is staying with us on our couch in our small 1 bedroom apartment our in a major city for 2 nights. He lives in another nearby (short flight) major city and had to come for an appointment.
Night 1- I get home from a work trip not feeling great at 1:30am and go to sleep. I wake up the next morning, my fiancé has gone to work and his friend is at the appointment. At this point my throat is on fire so I go to urgent care to get a strep test… turns out I have covid. I text my fiancé at work and mention that obviously his friend needs to get a hotel… I don’t want to be responsible for giving him covid. Since we live a small 1 bedroom apartment It would be impossible to fully quarantine bc I need tan walk right by where he is sleeping to get to the bathroom. My fiancè is understanding but when he calls his friend, the friend says no he wants to stay with us anyways. We offered to pay for his hotel, but he still said no.
At this point, I feel horrible and not only do I not want to get the friend sick, I also just need my own space to be sick. When I ask ny fiancé his plans for the rest of the day, he says he needs to go hang out with his friend. I am fine with that, but I ask if he could come home early to which he says 11pm. I am the type that will not be able to rest fully until my husband is home - our apartment is old and loud.
At this point, it’s hard for me to get up so I tell him I could really use the help just getting water, food, picking up prescription, and mainly some company/ comfort. He says it would be rude if we just told his friend to “fuck off” and stay at a hotel and then didn’t spend time with him. Its 3pm… I told him I was totally fine with the spending the day wish his friend and going out to dinner but coming home for an early night, 8ish or 9 latest. He tells me I have put him in a really tough position and he would like some empathy, which makes me upset. I figure out a way to have my prescription delivered and I order my own supplies and food from Walgreens.
At this point, it’s 7pm and he said he would bring me home dinner. It is now after 9pm and he is at a bar watching basketball with his friend and I have not eaten dinner and we have nothing in the house since we have both been traveling. I am about to DoorDash, but it would have been really nice to have my fiancé there to take care of me. I have a fever and feel horrible/ exhausted and he knows this, yet it is past 9pm and he’s still at the bar. His friend has agreed to stay at a hotel but it sounds like we will end up paying which is fine since we offered even though he is a financially stable man in his 30s.
Am I the ass hole for wanting my fiancé home early and asking his friend to stay at a hotel for one night before he flies out tomorrow?
UPDATE: forgot to mention that a symptom I am having is …. urgently needing to use the restroom… if you know what I mean and I really don’t want to have to share with 2 men.

So, for context, my guardian, my aunt, 65 years old, took custody of me when I, 18, was 6. She's raised me like a mother since I was a child. I feel a deep sense of guilt towards how I feel towards her, but the older I get, the more I realize how badly she has harmed and neglected me and I hate it. Living with her and having to take on an almost caretaker type role towards her due to her health issues is wearing me down and I can't help but remember all of the ways she's failed me.
When I think back, she's always been neglectful towards me, particularly medically. She's a nurse, she should know when someone needs to see a doctor. However, any time I've been sick, even with my diagnosed chronic disease (I was diagnosed at 6), she's always just immediately decided that I'm faking it. There's been times where I've had to sit on her floor running a 102 degree fever with strep (at the time undiagnosed) sobbing to get her to take me to a doctor. I have some particularly abhorrent stories regarding her not listening to me.
At 16, I was rollerskating at a rink at my friend's birthday party. I fell and immediately my wrist went numb. I was dizzy and nauseous, so I took my skates off and crawled to the gross bathroom to hover over the toilet. My friends mom sent me home with a gift bag to use as a puke bag. On the way, I puked twice and nearly blacked out. As soon as I got home, I had my aunt inspect my arm. I told her I thought it was broken. She was convinced it was just a sprain. A week later a large bruise formed on my wrist. My school nurse told me she thought my wrist was broken. My aunt told me once more it was just a sprain.
Okay, a month goes by. My wrist was still in debilitating pain and my grades were dropping because I couldn't use a pencil and I was growing increasingly unmotivated. During this entire month, me and my aunt had been arguing back and forth. She was furious that I wanted to see a doctor and that I'd trust one over her. However, eventually she caved.
As soon as the doctor did the Xray and took a look at it, he immediately asked me while my aunt was in the room why we hadn't come sooner. It was broken. My aunt's face had immediately gone red. However, since we'd waited too long, nothing could be done. On the way home, I repeated his question, asking why we hadn't come sooner and why she hadn't believed me. She screamed at me the whole way home. Even 2 years later I still have trouble with my wrist, I don't think it ever healed right. I can't put too much pressure on it.
Later on that year, my wisdom teeth started coming in. I was in horrible pain and I begged my aunt to take me to the dentist. She waited months to finally take me, once again only because of my sobbing sessions slowly breaking her down. Once the professional looked at my teeth, again was the question of why we didn't come sooner. My wisdom teeth were nearly tangled up in the nerves and my teeth had all shifted. My teeth had been perfect before. Now they're no longer aligned and I grind my teeth in my sleep as a result. Another likely permanent issue caused by my aunt's mishandling of my medical care.
Another case of her not listening to me was between the ages of 8-14. I have diagnosed CPTSD, ADHD, and a few other disorders I will not name here. However, at the time I was undiagnosed and my aunt refused to believe I had anything wrong, despite her having PTSD herself. For years I dealt with dissociation, derealization, PTSD episodes leading to me hiding under tables sobbing and experiencing flashbacks at school, and many other problems. I also dealt with SH and suicidal ideation. I begged her to help me. I was spiraling rapidly by the time I turned 13. What made these issues worse is that my aunt HATES when I cry. She responds to it by getting infuriated.
The only thing that caused her to seek help for me was when she'd found a noose in my room at 14. She never brought it up with me. She simply placed it on the kitchen table so I'd see it when I came home from school. I went to my room and sobbed. A few weeks later, she'd placed me with a psychiatrist and I was put on medication and diagnosed with the disorders that I now know I have. I can't help but think back now about how much pain could've been avoided if she'd believed me sooner.
Medical issues isn't even where this all ends. Ever since I was young, she's had a strong grip over me. At 16, I told her about the first partner I've had that she'd known about to that point. I'd already been dating him for a year without telling her, but to this day she still doesn't know that. She was immediately upset about me dating. She insisted I couldn't date until I was older. Well, I ignored that advice, and it was something we argued about frequently. She'd often call me to her room sobbing late at night begging me to tell her I was still a virgin. I'd lie, telling her yes only to appease her. She was incredibly racist towards my partner. When we broke up after he cheated on me, she'd given me a firm "I told you so" and I still hate that. Thankfully at 17 she was more receptive to my current partner, who now lives with us. It's interesting how her views on things changed as soon as I was dating a white man.
Another qualm I have is how she's always tried to keep me locked in the house. At 15-17, there were time frames where I wouldn't leave the house for months unless it was to go to the store with her or to go to school. She'd never let me go anywhere. I've also had my permit since I was 15, however, after a few driving lessons early on, she decided she was never going to let me drive again. She kept insisting each summer that she'd enroll me in driving classes, but it never happened. At 18 I still do not have a car or license and I don't think I'll have any way to get one for a long, long time. I firmly believe she's done this to keep me dependent on her. She'd always tell me as a child that she wanted me to stay around to change her diapers when she got old.
She's never been proud of me. Every single time I'd have something good happen, she'd always find negatives about it. Every time I act responsibly and make good decisions, she finds things to complain about. I tried to suck up to her as a kid and went out of my way to make her proud. I think the only time she's ever expressed being proud of me has been recently when I got my cosmetology license.
Now we're to present day. I'm still living with her and if I didn't remind her to eat, she probably never would. She knows she has control over me because she knows I worry about her health. I'm worried I'll never be able to be separate from her and that I'll have to depend on her for a very long time solely because she depends on me. I feel like I'll never be able to move out because I'm terrified of what will happen if I do. She suffers from TIAs that end up with her in the hospital and we have no other family around. She falls sometimes as well. I feel so trapped but so angry towards her all the time, but I keep it deeply repressed.
Sorry for how messy and all over the place this is, I guess I just wanted somewhere to dump all of this.

Memory Transcription Subject: Orsi, Venlil Diplomat.
Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 29, 5012.
The disastrous news had reached me only hours prior to now. Humanity had made contact with the Federation and introduced itself as the Totality. Though the way they did it had been censored, I was assured that it had been quite theatrical. I didn’t have time to wonder just what this entailed for us, when I Was told to continue negotiations and that Governor Amek would keep it secret. It was worrisome, truthfully, and I wondered just what was so strange that we had to continue to tolerate such a strange species.
Strange wasn’t a word for it I suppose. Grievous would be a more apt descriptor. I was beginning to believe that this was no front, despite their predatory nature. But at the same time, they struggled with predators too. So I momentarily entertained blasphemy, that perhaps the Federative Cult was incorrect, and that there was a gray that blended predator and prey. Such thoughts however were quickly cast aside, a deep shame in the pit of my stomach.
I was a single ewe. How could I possibly know more than the grand and illustrious Federation? My memory was faulty before the Federative Archives, which knew all things.
Nonetheless, I had to continue to commune with these creatures and so I arrived early to the negotiating table. In the same spot I had sat before, I viewed Konstawen approaching from down the long and wide hall before us - his belt adorned with a strange box. I had heard that freight had arrived for them prior to now, which had been a cause for suspicion. I wondered if perhaps the time was now for his predator trap to be sprung.
But instead, he pressed a button upon it as he came closer. The metallic object began to make a low humming sound and the air around him began to vibrate. This obscured his form in a blur of colors, my eyes unable to focus on him. It was as if I was staring at a fever dream’s approximation of a person, and yet it set my mind at ease. I was unable to see his awful features now. I felt my shoulders slightly sag from one of many burdens lifted from me.
“His Majesty dictated first contact, so I’ve heard. It’s unfortunate. I wish he had more time here.”
His voice too was changed. It sounded like my own voice, parakeeted back to me with uncanny accuracy. As uncanny as it may be, I found comfort that I heard neither grunt nor growl, but my own Venlil voice. I tucked my hands in, unsure what to say yet. What were we to do if I was caught? I knew the crime for apostates who communed with archons of evil. I would be strapped into a machine and forever left to suffer. I swallowed the lump in my throat softly, hoping against all hope that my prior blasphemy may be true.
“I have heard the same. Governor Amek wishes to continue our correspondence, though we can’t guarantee secrecy.”
As the vibrating brushstroke of colors sat, I wondered if he was gazing upon me as balefully as he had before, beneath that smokescreen. Now that I couldn’t see his face - he could be doing anything, possibly slobbering at the thought of eating me? I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to know.
“We would be best off remaining quiet about this. I have a proposition?”
I paused, “Oh?”
“I suggest that we change our base of operations to my House’s Homeworld, Öylah. It is the closest of the Totality’s worlds to Venlil Prime.”
My heart skipped a beat at that thought. Were they hoping to get their meals delivered to them? I had felt assuaged yesterday, but hardly today! I stared at him with a furrowed brow, knowing that this becoming public would possibly lead to the end of my career at best, or forever atoning at worst. I weaved my hands together, trying not to show my thoughts as I hesitantly spoke.
I was afraid to go to whatever hell he called home.
“What’s Öylah like?”
He paused, taking on a tone that I spoke with - one that was characteristic of nostalgia.
“It’s rocky and mountainous, with green grass and vibrant flowers. It’s one of our main exports, after all.” He spoke again, “I know you fear for your safety, and that’s reasonable. I assure you, Mankind has learned to keep its instincts at bay. You will be protected.”
Instincts at bay? That both horrified and assuaged me. What did they mean? There was no way they were in control of themselves to that degree, to suppress the predatory instinct that the Arxur shared with them. The thought again crossed my mind, perhaps that they were of a greyer brushstroke between black and white. I opened my mouth, and closed it again, keeping my ears infirtuatingly erect, my tail wrapping around my leg beneath the table.
“Why?” I asked, “Why must we keep this secret?”
Konstawen chuckled softly, “It’s because you’ve been lied to. Let us reverse this delusion together.”