Hi all,
My darling daughter (11F, neurogenic bladder) was taken to the hospital 2 weeks ago because her eye had swollen shut and her eyebrow had drooped. The doctor checked for foreign objects, and there wasn’t anything, so he thought it might be an allergy. He sent her home with allergy eye drops.
It didn’t improve, so we took her to the pharmacy, who suggested it could be an infection, so gave her some Chlorisig eye drops, and told us to go back to the doctors if it didn’t improve.
It didn’t, so we went to the doctor on Friday, who checked her eye again. He said it looked like an infection, so to get the Chlorisig ointment and use that as well as the drops - and if it continued to go back to the hospital.
Monday afternoon, still no improvement, so we went to the hospital again. After blood tests which ruled out infection, the doctors diagnosed her with Bell’s Palsy Grade 3, didn’t give us anything for it and sent us home.
She’s still feeling crummy (fatigue, pain and aches all over, sore head, not liking the light), at what point should we take her back to the hospital or the doctors? What other tests should we be asking for? I’m worried about our girl, she’s definitely not herself. Thank you all in advance x

So, I had to create a new profile just to post it as a way of processing my emotions. I couldn't risk posting it from my main account, since this (Reddit) is the very place I met HIM :( And if he ever stumbled upon my profile again, I wouldn't want him to see it.
It's not a rhymed poem or anything, but it helped me express what I feel, maybe some of you can relate. I know I found comfort in reading the words of others here earlier.
Here it is :(
You’re not even here, yet you keep me up
Sick to my stomach, thoughts of you weigh me down
My tear-stained pillow feels comfortless under my cheek
You’re ever present.
Why did I welcome you into my heart + life
When all the signs and logic warned me “Tread with care.”
Blame you now, I could
But I failed to draw the line myself.
Why, oh, why did I let you in?
Little by little I opened the doors of my heart,
Only to swing them way too wide in the end,
Now I want to close them again, but you linger there,
On the doorstep, like a ghost.
It hurts to recall all you’d said to me
My silly heart leaps at those memories
Oh, I know you meant it then,
It baffles me how fickle it all was.
How can you move on so fast,
Erase every thoughts of me from your life,
While you’re nearly all I think about.
You said you cared, you’d never want to leave,
But when things didn’t work out,
And plans went askew,
You shut me away.
I gave you a good piece of my heart,
I told you, “It’s fragile,”
Your hand grasped it eagerly,
And then it was yours, to keep or to toss,
Well, you chose the latter.
I’m angry at you, but mostly, at myself
Because your texts still mean the world to me
While you shut me out from yours for good.
For you I’m a bleep, nothing but a fleeting memory.
You left an imprint on my soul
Oh, don’t flatter yourself, it was small
But deep enough
And I don’t understand why you left
When it was you chasing me all along.
My mind recalls these hours-long conversations,
How I wish I could hear your warm voice again,
But suddenly, even two words from you,
Seem too much, don’t they?
You’re glad to never talk.
Your apparent indifference
After all your lovely words and hot promises
stuns me,
I shake my head in disbelief.
And the thing is, you said you want my friendship,
You begged me to stay and just be your friend,
Through tears I agreed, though I wanted more,
but then you decided to just let me go.
Well, I’m done waiting around,
Hoping endlessly to hear from you
My naive heart stands at attention each time my phone lights up,
Though it hurts so badly now,
I know I’ll be okay.
A part of me wants to scream and shout,
For you to feel a fraction of the pain that gnaws at my soul
But I can’t because I still care too much.
I know with time this aching void you used to fill with yourself will fade
I’ll find my inner peace,
Rebuild the world you wrecked
In such a short time.
This is the last time I let myself cry
(but haven’t I said that before?)
I guess you’re not worthy of my time and attention,
You’re oh-so-important
Because I’ve made you so
But I know it was pure,
I did not need your validation.
I didn’t need you at all, you know,
But I wanted you,
to share my life and give my love.
Well, I choose to wish you well - I do, I really do
So I swallow my tears (I never liked their salty taste anyway)
And say “Goodbye.”

I went to Urgent care earlier today with the doctor thinking I had Strep. There’s these white bumps all over in my mouth but only the left lymph node is swollen. The swab for strep came back negative, he says he thinks it might be tonsil stones but that was going to treat it as strep and prescribed me 825mg Amoxicillin to take every 12 hours. I’ve been doing all kinds of research myself and tonsil stones just doesn’t seem right? It’s in the back of the throat and all over in the front too. I am curious to see what Reddit may suggest, and if I should wait it out or see about getting a second look at it. Swallowing is painful and unless i’m full of ibuprofen It’s excruciating. It feels like my throat is activity filling up with the pus and it’s hurts so much. I’ve been taking Dayquil, Ibuprofen, cough drops, salt water gargle, etc to help but nothing seems to work.

(unsure of which flair is appropriate)
I get stomach aches when I feel guilty. There is one thing I don’t ever want to be, and that’s the catalyst for someone’s torture. Only the worst of us are undeserving of happiness. I want to be happy, and I can see myself in everybody. Most people can.
And then there is you, who cannot, and I can see myself in you the most. We have the same skills and hobbies, almost identical flaws—though you were raised by different parents in a different home, and I’m sure you don’t see static when you look around, or hear the blood rushing in your head when you tense the muscles in your jaw.
You say you cannot see yourself in anyone. You pick people apart, and try so hard to be that catalyst. The voices in your head, you declared to the world when called a schizo, only compliment you. Then, you state that you cannot feel emotions after somebody makes you cry.
They don’t take you seriously. They really shouldn't. But, I do, on occasion, since you’re my biggest fan.
We have the same skill set, only you're scared of trying. So my recognition becomes something to disdain. I am schemed against—you hit me with a pole while I was asleep last Friday. Which would have made me laugh if it hadn’t have startled me.
My admission of weakness is your sign that I am nothing, and yet you seem to want that nothing so badly. If that pole somehow killed me, I assume you’d claim to be overjoyed, then curl up inside of yourself with a stomach ache that would curdle your innards upon arriving back at your home.
Another assertion of yours is that love is beyond you. Once you were straight, once you were gay, and now you are nothing, but I see clearly that you're in love with what you could or should be. I hold my ideal self close to me, too. But that is far from all I see since during my stomach aches I have learned to pick myself apart. I no longer need you to do it for me, for I am much more thorough, and have discovered things that have destroyed me, and have discovered things that have gotten me slightly closer to what I could or should be.
I want to be better. I will fight to be better.
But at the moment you refuse a similar effort, so while I supposedly block the way of your unachievable dream of ego-feeding fame and intellect, we can both hold our stomachs and cry.

Inebriated Conversations

After eight long and grueling hours, we began our rapid descent from the heavens. I never really got the: “did it hurt when you fell from heaven” pickup line until we hit the tarmac. The force of the impact nearly knocked my head into the seat in front of me, so fuck yeah, it hurt when I fell from heaven. I’d imagine even Lucifer himself had a softer landing than we did. He also didn’t have to endure the stomach churning and nauseating food that was served on the plane, but I digress, at least we had finally reached our destination. A land not so far away that only varied in appearance, but the truth was this mystical and magical land, deep down, was no different from the place I grew up or attend college. As I waited in purgatory, the security line, I began wondering if I was dreaming. Was I really in London or even a different country for that matter? The line, which seemed so much longer than the European and the U.K., line was filled with fellow Americans. Perhaps they are still acrimonious about us beating them in the Revolutionary War, so they decided that this was ample punishment for our victory. Whatever the case, we finally made it through security, then collected our bags. I saw my relatively new bag with the bowtie on the handle and was relieved that it had not been lost or left in the United States. We met our tour guide, Emma, who at first glance seemed to be very different. She had an unusual hair cut that was much shorter than ones most woman her age would have, but I soon learned that her appearance, much like London’s, would not be any indication of what lies beyond. When we finally escaped from limbo, the airport, we were put on a coach bus, and taken to our hotel. I was exhausted and in need of a shower, but all I could do was drop my luggage off, then swiftly return to the lobby. As we stood outside in the crisp, refreshing air, we were handed our subway passes, or as they say, “tube passes.” We followed our guide, Emma, on a short walk to the underground. When our group finally descended the stairs and made our way to the map, a map Virgil couldn’t even navigate, we began our journey that involved the same punishment as those afforded to people in the eighth level of hell. We walked endlessly, 10.6 miles, and viewed the most popular tourist attractions London had to offer. I was surrounded by beautiful statues, fantastic architecture, and attractive people whose dialect could captivate almost anyone. At first, like everyone else, I was completely and utterly captivated by it all, because it was a completely different world. Our group finished the day with a mile and a half walk to the Globe Theatre, where we saw Shakespeare’s play, Comedy of Errors. My fellow students and I stood, as our professors sat comfortably watching the play. During the production, all I could think about was my numb legs and my aching feet. I tried drowning the pain with a few glasses of overly priced and nasty wines, but my attempt was to no avail. For once in my life, I knew what it was like to experience actual physical agony, not just the tedious and never-ending emotional kind. It wasn’t the lake of fire or some frozen wasteland, but that shit was still excruciating. After the play, we struggled to find a new passageway to the hot and crowded underworld, the tube, but luckily, I had service on my phone, so we found it. We finally made it back to the hotel around eleven in the evening. After a long day of flying and an excess of walking, I had never been as excited as I was to climb into a bed that was, quite frankly, too small for my six-foot-five physique. To anyone reading this, don’t worry, I’m not planning on giving a day to day synopsis of what I saw while I was abroad, because the sights aren’t what truly matter. I mean, I could just rant about Buckingham Palace and its beauty, Windsor Castle and its enormous layout, the Tower of London and its history, the Natural History Museum and its priceless artifacts, Stratford upon Avon and Shakespeare’s life, Oxford and it’s impressive library, Cornwall and its tranquil beaches, the Minack Theatre and its sublimity, or the Ashmolean Museum and its Jeff Koons exhibition, but that shit has no genuine meaning to it. I’m not going to waste your time by writing about some tourist sites that you could see in almost any travel magazine about the U.K., so if that’s what you are looking for stop reading. I suggest you pick up a travel magazine and read it until you are content, but if you want to read something real, then I suggest you continue. The reality is, the things I’ll take from this trip are the inebriated conversations I had with others. I not only gave these people advice about their lives; I learned something new about my own. I, ***** *******, am the Barstool Prophet, who descended from the heavens prepared to spout wisdom and retardation. Before I divulge the serious and deep conversations I experienced abroad, I want to let you know that the other person and I were under the influence of alcohol. I know what you are thinking, but alcohol has been a part of human culture since 7,000 B.C.; to put that into perspective, man invented alcohol before the wheel. From what I've seen in my lifetime some people drink to forget, some drink to remember, some drink to punish themselves, and some drink to converse with others. I fall into the latter category, but while I was in the U.K., I encountered people whose purpose for drinking was similar to mine as well as people that would fall in the other categories. I never really got the saying, "It's better to be a glass half full person, than a glass half empty person." I get the whole positivity aspect of the saying; however, I'd trust a "glass half empty person" far more, because they'd just order another drink. I am in no way trying to promote alcoholism; in reality, I am just trying to explain how alcohol can fuel an in-depth conversation. The Latin proverb "In Vino Veritas" states that "In Wine there is Truth"; wiser words have never been spoken. Alcohol allows people to speak their hidden thoughts and desires, especially to a stranger like me. 

Emma

As I stated earlier, Emma was our tour guide, who sported a relatively short and somewhat masculine haircut. Luckily, I had consumed enough alcohol at the time of her arrival to ask her why she chose that specific style. After giving me a vague: “because I like it” response, she clutched her glass of wine and forced it down. We talked about her occupation and how lonely traveling could get, but she seemed like she was familiar with the feeling of loneliness. She asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, and I said, “I want to be a lawyer.” Emma slammed her glass down and began to laugh hysterically; she said, “Seriously?” I found her response quite peculiar until she revealed that her ex-husband was a lawyer. He was devoted to his job and always worked long hours, which did not bother her, at first. I surmise that his lack of interest in her is what led to their separation. After a long moment of silence, I gulped my drink down and gained the courage to ask: “do you think the relationship you had with him prepared you for this job?” She paused and began to think intently. She took a sip of her wine, laughed, and said, “I guess so, that’s one positive thing I got out of the relationship.” The chat continued with talk of food, politics, weather, and other small-talk topics, but then we somehow made it back to her haircut. Emma told me that she was bi-sexual, which, despite the tell-tell signs in her appearance, isn’t something she shares with most people. I told her that homophobia and racism is a major part of the culture that I grew up in, which surprised her. She couldn’t comprehend how someone with that upbringing could be so openminded. I responded with one word and one word only, “Self-Awareness.” I came to the realization that in life people are consciously and unconsciously molded by those around them, but at the end of the day, it is their choice to decide who they are and what they believe. Emma’s marriage may not have been picture perfect, but she was still able to take something positive from it. As much as we don’t want to admit it, even the worst of our relationships impact us in a positive way. 

Phillip Goldsmith

Before I get into this incredibly intense and somewhat depressing story, I’d like to describe its setting. I was sitting on a red velvet couch, drinking Jack Daniels Honey in a tall glass with one ice cube. I know what you are thinking, but I was not in a strip club. Our hotel’s game room/ bar area looked like an American strip club, not that I’ve ever been in one. Like seriously, if a few poles and dancers were added, I’d feel like I was at the Red Carpet, which is a strip club near where I live, but again, I may or may not have been there. I had finished half my bottle when Phil walked in, and I could immediately tell that he was hurting on the inside. Excluding dumbass frat guys, not very many people drink vodka straight out of the bottle with the intention of finishing it. He sat next to us, so I reached my hand out and said, “Hey man, what’s your name?” He said, “Hello, I am Phillip Goldsmith.” I responded as anyone would and said, “That’s a badass name!” We talked about life, love, and women as most guys do. We were both close to finishing our bottles when I noticed a tattoo on his arm that said, “Harry.” Who was this Harry? He certainly didn’t strike me as a Royalist, so I knew he didn’t just get the prince’s name on his arm for shits and giggles. I gulped down a few more sips of my drink and slowly placed it back down. I looked him in the eyes and said, “who is Harry?” His response shook every bone in my body to their core. After holding his tears back and ingesting some more of his vodka, Phil looked at me and said that “Harry was his son.” Was? He continued speaking, and I learned that Harry died three days after he was born. That tragic loss would result in a few other loses in his life, his wife, and his faith. Phil told me that he used to go to his grave on his birthday and Christmas, but he couldn’t do it anymore. He didn’t see a point in it any longer. Surprisingly I felt the urge to tell him that “God loved him and that he would see his son again.” I am in no way a prolific believer; I’d probably put myself in the wayward son category. However, something came over me, and I felt like I needed to tell him that. We had both finished our drinks, and as we were saying our goodbyes, he thanked me. I don’t know why, but he did. My encounter with Phil taught me that when you meet someone, you don’t know what they are going through, but through love and compassion, you can have a positive impact on them. 

Lexie

Lexie is a beautiful and intelligent young lady from Kansas City, Missouri. We met and chatted throughout the week because she was a part of our EF group. One night, after Lexie and I had more than our share of wine, we began to talk about our plans for the future. Before I tell this story, you must know, I have the unfortunate handicap of flirtation when I drink, but she was able to move past my impulsive outburst. I think my accidental comments about her beautiful eyes, stunning smile, and cute laugh allowed her to open up to me. Despite what you are thinking, I like to flirt because I enjoy making women smile, I don’t always do it for self-serving reasons. Anyways, as I said, we started discussing our plans for the future, but one can’t divulge their future in an inebriated state without discussing their past. I gave my whole spiel about wanting to be a prosecutor who would later become a congressman, then a Supreme Court or D.C. Circuit Court justice. She said, “Wow! That’s quite the plan. I want to go into Law as well.” I hastily responded by saying, “That’s sexy. I could see it.” We both laughed, but then she said, “I don’t know though, Law School is hard.” She didn’t strike me as a person who couldn’t handle a challenge, so I asked, “Why do you think you wouldn’t excel? You present yourself as someone who does.” She tried not to blush, then sipped her extremely sweet white wine. I know it was sweet because I made the unfortunate decision of trying it; it was so sweet that even a rock would get a hangover from it. Anyways, she started talking about high school and how people thought she was unintelligent. I laughed and thought about how I experienced that very same thing. I said, “Fuck that, screw them. God, high school girls are mean. Do you actually believe that crap?” She giggled and said, “Of course not, but it’s still in the back of my head.” I grabbed another beer from Raj, the bartender at the hotel. Yes, we were on a first name basis; did you expect anything less from the barstool profit? I sat back down and leaned in, intent on getting this point across to Lexie. I sipped my beer, ever so casually, and said, “Listen, we all remember the immature negatives of our high school existence, but this is now. At some point, we have to grow up into the people we want to be, not who everyone tells us to be.” She then asked, “Why are you so wise?” (You are probably thinking “sure she did,” but I swear that is what she said; I’m not a narcissist using creative license to praise myself.) I accredited it to my amazing parents as well as the shitty ex-girlfriends, situations, and friends I had experienced. We continued talking about a lot of random things like abortion, racism in America, and other pseudo-political topics. It was 3 am. when we finally decided it was time to go to bed. I hugged her and told her to use those negative voices as motivation. Again, I was thanked for the conversation, which, at this point, seems to be a normal thing for strangers to do. My conversation with Lexie made me realize that, when we travel, the baggage we carry isn’t only the physical kind. That tedious and deep emotional baggage also comes along for the journey. Most people, who travel somewhere, will lose a physical part of their baggage, like a sock, shirt, or something of that nature. Lexie did something most could not and do not, she left a piece of her emotional baggage, the night I spoke to her in the bar. 

Szymon

Szymon was in the bar area when I got to the hotel. He had a very interesting accent, which was far different from the ones I had heard that week, so I asked, “Where are you from?” He said, in a relatively drunken manner, “I am from Poland. You’re from America, aren’t you.” I responded with a firm: “Yes.” The conversation proceeded with small talk, but as I had a few more beers, the topics shifted to more serious topics. I was recently in a Holocaust history class, so of course, the first serious thing I asked was if he had been to Warsaw to see the Concentration Camps. He paused in silence, so I said, “Talk about hell on Earth, the holocaust was some fucked up shit.” After saying that he seemed to gain the courage to tell me that he was Jewish. He told me about the things his parents endured as children and how his grandfather had died in a concentration camp. He told me how he had rejected his faith after hearing these horrible stories. He said to me, “What could faith do for someone. The Jews have been persecuted countless times for it.” I understood where he was coming from, but at the same time, I didn’t. He had real reasons for his existential doubt, and I truly could not say the same. I got a shot of vodka from Raj; threw it back, and said, “Our faith shapes our decisions in life, even if we tell ourselves it doesn’t.” He sat pondering my words, but he seemed bored of the discussions about faith. I quickly changed the subject and asked him, “Why are you in London?” I learned that he travels all over continental Europe cleaning asbestos out of old buildings. I responded as any young person would and said, “that’s cool. I’d love to travel all over Europe.” He said, “it might be for a young single guy, but I hardly see my kids. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if my wife cheated on me.” I couldn’t believe he would say something that personal, but then again, that’s what alcohol does. I suggested that he quit the job and find one closer to home. He laughed and said, “Ugh… you sound like my wife right now.” I bought him another beer and said, “maybe you should listen to her.” He looked at me and said, “maybe you are right ha-ha.” My conversation with Szymon taught me that it doesn’t matter how much money you make or how many places you get to travel on the company’s dime. What matters in life is family and the ones you love. By the time we stopped talking, I could hardly understand him, but he shook my hand and said, “have fun in London.” I laughed and said, “I will, call your wife tonight and tell her you love her.” He smiled and nodded, assuring me he would. It was time to leave, so I packed my things and got ready to go to the airport. I finally boarded my fiery chariot that would bring me back to the heavens. I forced down a few shots of Jack Daniels, closed my eyes, and wondered if the Barstool Prophet would have a second coming. Would I ever return to this amazing city and spout words of wisdom and retardation? Would I ever drink two whole liters of cider and wake up with a black eye? Well, that one is a definite no, but so many questions are left unanswered. Did I actually impact those that I talked to? Did they even remember the conversation? As much as I want to believe I did, I’ll never know. We don’t know what this life holds or what our encounters with strangers will yield; all we can do is give it our best shot and live like we are dying… (Que inspiring music). 

Let me know if the foundation of this sardonic and surface level literature reference writing has potential… first ever post!

So I’m 18 a couple months ago I had an experience with this guy that took my virginity and I regret it (low key felt guilt tripped into the whole thing and he’s was like 35), he told me that he was clean and that he was tested like two weeks back and was in Prep But I’ve been getting sick way more often then I normally do - at first I thought it was just dorm flu’s and maybe making out with this other dude made my immune system shocked. Never the less in the present, I don’t feel sick but my lymph nodes on my neck are inflamed and two pairs of them are way to big for me to be comfortable. This is all paired with tonsillitis which I’ve only ever had after this experience.
I don’t know what to do, HIV testing is too expensive for me and I don’t know if my health insurance covers it but even so would that be on record for my parents to see.
This really sucks, I’ve been super stressed because of all of this and I have no idea if I have reason to be terrified.
The consequences of being young and stupid I guess

Injured knee last week, (bare with me this may be relevant to know) also currently dealing with a tough infection in head eadental/sinus dealing massive lymph node left side, left cranial pressure and burning, left eye vision disturbances scorching neck into collarbone and shoulder, I had Leukemia hx (currently in remission) so my immune system seems basically like a blind bouncer at a club. Anyway, I'm on antibiotics and see PCP monday, no current fever or unusual drop in temp either, but today I noticed something weird, on my injured knee there is a red line that goes laterally only on knee portion near where i injured myself and does not fade under glass. Is that ALWAYS cause for concern? Or is there multiple reasons a line would remain with glass test? I've been septic once and I've had meningitis once and as I remember from my cancer treatment honoree md (joke) those are the only two reasons a non fading line would exist but in both of those scenarios I was basically catatonic and unconscious whereas besides current discomfort, some PTSD health anxiety and infection symptoms I'm overall feeling fine?

Beware the white haired humans when they utter the phrase "I'm too old for this shit!"
Post Incident Enquiry:
Zeldix Captain: When Human Jerry signed on as an assistant cook, he said he was looking for a job that would allow him to travel without burning through his retirement funds.
Arvosian Investigator: Please continue.
Zeldix Captain: I've worked with humans before. They tend to be friendly, energetic and endlessly creative.
Arvosian Investigator: I'm well aware of human tendencies Captain. They do tend to get a bit, uh, enthusiastic in their approach to life. I very much doubt that Assistant Cook Jerry is any different.
Zeldix Captain: That's just it. Human Jerry is different. He is the first white haired human I've served with. While he's friendly enough and does excellent work in the galley, there's a weariness about him that I've never seen in a human before.
Arvosian Investigator: Weariness in a human!? That seems odd, given their usual boundless energy.
Zeldix Captain: I asked Human Jerry about this once. He told me that it's perfectly normal as they age. He told me that as time goes by their joints begin to ache, their eyes weaken, their organs lose efficiency and life in general just wears them down.
Arvosian Investigator: I'm not certain that I fully understand, but if this is true, it sounds as if humans become less capable as they age.
Zeldix Captain: Physically perhaps, but somehow Human Jerry was able to compensate for these weaknesses and and is actually one of the best crewmen to ever serve on a ship under my command. I even offered him the head cook position and he turned me down, claiming he enjoyed his work and didn't want the added responsibility and was content to spend the early years of his retirement as a, as he put it, "simple cook".
Arvosian Investigator: Is there anything further you'd like to add regarding Human Jerry's background, or shall we move on to the incident itself.
Zeldix Captain: I'm sure you can get more regarding Human Jerry's background when you interview him yourself, so lets move on to the pirate attack.
Arvosian Investigator: Very well Captain, please proceed.
Zeldix Captain: We were on a standard freight run from Berdiel Six to Arvosia 3, hauling a load of...
The Zeldix Captain describes the pirate attack and the capture of his crew in detail to the Arvosian Inspector. Eventually he gets to the part that centers on Human Jerry.
Zeldix Captain: ...and then they corralled the crew in the dining haul. I happened to glance in Human Jerry's direction and he looked just incredibly sad and tired. Then he looked at me and in the most universe weary voice I've ever heard, he said "I'm too old for this shit.". Then.. Then..
Arvosian Investigator: Go on Captain
Zeldix: The things he did to those poor pirates...
Alright Space Orc community, please continue the story or come up with your own based on this little idea.

30 weeks tomorrow. I basically can’t sleep at night time. At all. I stayed up for 28 hours to fix it. Slept a normal 8 hours at the end of that long stretch only to wake up the next day and not be able to sleep that night. Some days I sleep for 12 hours straight, but I’m never getting good sleep or wake up fully rested. Sometimes I sleep for 3 hours and feel great, or like crap. There’s almost no rhyme or reason to my sleep patterns/lack thereof.
I’m terrified I still won’t be able to sleep once she’s born. I know newborn exhaustion is a thing, and a different kind of tired. But right now all I have to worry about is her growth and my nutrition intake and getting enough rest, not WHEN I rest. Day/night time doesn’t matter too much. Right now I dont have another person who solely depends on me for survival(outside of the womb) who needs a schedule. I guess I’m just scared of having this same viscous (and lonely) cycle going once she’s here too. It’s like I myself am a newborn who has day/night confusion.
People in my circle tell me it’s common but it’s so lonely that I’ve become depressed from it. I realize hormones change after birth and I’ll be so tired from the newborn routine, but I’m so scared of being a failure of a mom because of this depression I’m dealing with and that it won’t go away when postpartum hormones come through.
All I do every day is sleep and wake up a few hours before my husband gets home from work. I get about 2 1/2 3 hours max with him and then he’s sleeping. And I have sleep anxiety. It’s like he’s leaving me for the day again? Because of this and the loneliness/depression it’s caused it’s been difficult to regulate my emotions on top of the typical irritability and irrationality that comes with pregnancy. If anything my body hasn’t suffered from this pregnancy. It’s nearly a flawless pregnancy. But my mind… is suffering in a way that’s hard to explain. this is the least like myself I’ve ever been in my life. I can’t control any of my emotions/feelings/hysterical bouts. And so many people tell me it just gets worse postpartum. If I’m struggling this bad to the point of wanting to bang my head against the doorframe and crying for no reason until my eyes are swollen now how will I ever get better once she’s here? I’m genuinely terrified for my mental health and my baby’s, she can feel what I’m feeling. I’m so scared that she will have a horrible anxious attachment to me from what she’s already experiencing.
I take pregnancy approved medication for these mental struggles that are a side affect of my insufficient sleep/lack of it/too much of it. I’m also working closely with a psychiatrist. Has anyone else experienced this specifically? Did it change after birth? For the better? Or worse?

Logan the bounty hunter was in a really bad mood.
It all started when the coffee machine stopped working. This wasn’t a rare occurrence; in fact, it was the third time this cycle, but this time his go-to solution (taking out and reinserting the star powder battery) didn’t fix it, and he was all out of ideas.
It’s not that the caffeine even did anything for him. The nanomachines in his system filtered out many sorts of potentially addictive or harmful substances, and for some reason this included caffeine, which is a fact he only realized after the seven-cycle refund period had passed.
Still, it was an old habit and an act of comfort that he sorely felt the absence of.
That was the first thing. The second thing was that his tracker had stopped working. In fact, his entire connection to the galactic wide web (gww) had gone down. Without the tracker, he couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of his current bounty—a low-class deathworlder wanted for kidnapping and trafficking—which kind of made his whole bounty hunting business difficult to do.
Oh, and his ship had crashed.
Damn thing was overdue for maintenance, and the autopilot had started malfunctioning while flying over a small dusty-brown planet. It had taken some careful manual maneuvering and some buffeting about in the planet’s whirlwind atmosphere, but eventually he had managed the miracle of walking away from a smoking and unsalvageable wreckage with only minor cuts and bruises.
Here he was now, trudging through the sandy windswept dunes of a planet that hadn’t even showed up on the map. Armed with little more than a spacesuit, a blaster, and an undying will. And wishing he’d had that cup of coffee (and wasn’t immune to caffeine).
Logan raised a hand to his eyes, peering through the thick glass of his visor. There was so much dust and sand swirling around that it made it quite hard to see where he was going, not that there were any landmarks in sight anyway. It looked scorching hot outside, though his spacesuit registered a cool 286 Kelvin for some reason. Likely another malfunction, one that he’d rather not put to the test.
On a planet like this, he supposed, everyone (if anyone was even here) probably lived under the surface where it was probably cooler and probably free from sandstorms. All he had to do was find the entrance to their underground tunnels among all this shifting sand.
The chance of that happening was, unfortunately, not very high. Still, Logan wasn’t panicking yet; he’d been through worse, he thought. He’d been through jungles teeming with 8-foot beetles. Survived massive hiveminds circling to entrap him, faced slippery slimes that reformed their bodies to resemble those he held dearest. Horrible learning experiences, those.
That being said, sometimes it’s the mundane problems that pose the greatest threats of all. Starvation, aching thirst, and a dwindling oxygen supply while wandering a barren desert. It wouldn’t be a glamorous way to go out, and Logan was wracking his brain for ideas.
Now would’ve been a good time to use his rescue beacon, if he had one. This would be his, what, 127th bounty? And until now, he’d never had to use a beacon. Stopped carrying one a dozen bounties ago. Maybe it was just luck, but things had always gone pretty smoothly, and maybe he’d gotten a little overconfident.
Logan knelt down and grasped at the ground, watching the little grains of sand sift through his gloved fingers. Those little specks seemed to shimmer and flicker, like a low quality hologram call. Otherwise, though, they seemed normal; surprisingly similar to the sand he remembered from Earth. It made sense that some things remained the same throughout the universe; it’s not like every planet could re-invent the periodic table, after all. Even aliens had to remain grounded in reality, however loosely.
He looked down. According to his suit’s display, he had a few hours of oxygen left. He’d been walking for a while now with nothing but the sands to show for it. He also had to pee. It was really going quite terribly.
“It looks like you’re doing quite terribly,” a voice said, velvety and welcoming. Logan jerked his head up, blinking rapidly in surprise.
Standing before him, with crossed arms and a smoldering look, was a lithe, dusky-furred humanoid. They—or she, judging by the feminine face—was wearing a long, thin shawl translucent enough to reveal a pair of twitching, swiveling ears and a questioningly arced tail, swaying in the wind.
The feline features were unmistakable. It was, by all accounts, a catgirl.
Mentally, Logan pumped his arm and jumped for joy. Just wait until the guys back at Earth heard about this! Many a novice pilot first set out for the stars with dreams of catgirls and other alien babes in mind, but thus far, most alien species had been decidedly strange and eerily-shaped, though this didn’t stop everyone from pursuing them. Outwardly, though, he nodded, and rasped, “I could use some help. Do you know about this thing called ‘oxygen’?”
The catgirl frowned. “Great way to say hi to a girl. But yes, you aren’t the first traveler to crash-land on Shaw Prime. Follow me.”
“Oh, great,” Logan said. How convenient. “Where to?”
“My people live underground, hidden from the elements within a complex system of—”
“Tunnels? I knew it.”
The catgirl turned around and whipped her tail against Logan’s leg. It kind of stung for a moment. “I don’t know what culture you come from, traveler, but in mine, it’s rude to interrupt someone while they’re speaking. Especially if they’re the host and you, the guest.”
Logan rubbed the back of his head (or tried to, but the spacesuit got in the way). “Sorry. Just got excited. Interrupting someone speaking is actually considered rude in my culture, too.”
“So you should’ve known better.” The catgirl harrumphed and started marching forward, waving her tail to signal him to follow. He shrugged and started trudging along behind her.
“So where am I, exactly? ‘Shoe Prime’ you said earlier, I think?”
“Shaw Prime,” she corrected. “A small sand planet on the outermost reaches of the nearest solar system. Quite uninhabitable for most, and all our visitors arrive unwillingly.”
“I see. It certainly feels inhospitable. And,” Logan said, jumping in place a couple times, “you’ve got decently strong gravity, though less than where I come from. You know, this feels like at least a minor deathworld to me.”
“The term ‘deathworld’ is new to me, but it does seem fitting enough.”
“Right. I’m guessing the Galactic Federation hasn’t gotten around to marking your planet yet. Actually, your planet didn’t even show up on my map; people might not even know that civilization exists here. Huh.” It would be the first time for Logan to discover a new species. He could report this back home, and hopefully get handsomely rewarded for it.
“The ‘Galactic Federation’? I haven’t heard that term before. What does it mean?”
“That’s the big alliance formed by all the space-faring species of the known universe. They’re basically responsible for everything, including first official contact with new species like yours.” Logan paused a moment. “Wait, you said I’m not the first traveler to land here, right? How have you not heard of the Galactic Federation before?”
The catgirl’s ears twitched, but she didn’t look back. “They must have neglected to mention it.”
“Weird. Surely someone must’ve mentioned it. The Federation’s got these rules for first contact, see, and—”
“We’re almost there.” The catgirl interrupted, glancing back at him with those smoky eyes. “The hidden entrance to the tunnels lies just ahead.”
Logan peered through his visor. Ahead of his guide’s slim figure, he saw nothing but more of the same brown hues. A sudden uneasiness prickled his skin. “Where? I don’t see anything.”
“If you could see it, it wouldn’t be very hidden, would it? Come on.”
She beckoned him forward, and a few paces later, stopped entirely. She crouched down and scrabbled at the sand a few times, revealing a circular wooden hatch buried under a thin layer of sand. It didn’t look that heavy, but she grunted and strained to lift it up with her paws, revealing a dark cavern down inside.
“In you go,” she said, pointing her tail at the hole.
Something about this didn’t sit right with Logan. Maybe it was the way her fur stood warily on end, the way her ears shivered every so often. Maybe it was the fact that his guide didn’t know about the Galactic Federation, yet seemed familiar enough with travelers to communicate with ease. Sure his universal translator helped, but that was only supposed to work with discovered species, not ones that had yet to be contacted and researched. Or maybe it was just that he didn’t like jumping into suspiciously dark holes in the ground.
There was also the fact that the temperature gauge in his suit was now measuring a chilly 270 Kelvin. A far cry from the heat suggested by the sun-baked sands he saw.
He had a guess where this was going, and he didn’t like it, not one bit.
“Say,” he said, conversationally. “I noticed your hologram flickering earlier. Think you need some maintenance.”
“What?” The catgirl said, raising a dusky eyebrow. “I don’t know what that is. Won’t you go inside?”
“I’m just saying. It’s a convincing show and all, promise, but once you’ve been in the biz long enough, you start noticing small details like flickering sand and mismatched temps.”
“Look at you. All the heat must’ve gone to your head.” She said, sidling up to him. There was a sudden yet subtle shift in her demeanor, so quick that he almost didn’t notice. Her eyes lowered, her tongue darted out to lick her nose, and she placed one foot in front of the other gracefully, retracing her own steps perfectly. She approached him, casually curling her tail around his leg, sending tingles up his spine.
“Poor, weary traveler. It must’ve been tough, sailing through space all on your own. Won’t you come inside and rest a while?” She purred, tugging him gently towards the open hatch. “Quickly, before the sand covers it again.”
He inched a hand towards the blaster hanging at his side, unmoved by the obvious act. “Does the word ‘gelatinous’ mean anything to you?”
Her eyes locked onto his hand, her tail going stiff behind her. “Not as such, no. Why don’t we discuss this inside? After you, of course.”
“Of course. I’ll be on my way, then.”
Logan said, shoving her away, leaping back, and unholstering his blaster, all in one practiced motion. She landed softly on all fours, hissed, then sprang at him, fast as lightning. He raised an arm to block, pulling up his blaster and aiming it at her center mass. At the same time, she skidded to an abrupt halt before him, half-crouching as one hand darted past his arm without a sound.
They both froze. Logan’s blaster trained on her torso, her claws nearly piercing his neck. It seemed they were at a deadlock.
Wait, Logan thought to himself. I have a spacesuit.
His fingers itched on the trigger, but in that same instant, he heard a small tearing sound as a single claw slipped through several layers of synthetic polymers, Kevlar, and silica fiber to rest itself pointedly against the actual skin of his neck. A small hissing sound indicated the oxygen leaking from the new hole in his suit.
“That’’s a sharp knife you’ve got.” He said, feeling his mouth drying up.
“It’s not a knife,” she said smugly, though her raised fur betrayed her wariness.
“Enough of these illusions, okay? I’ve seen through ‘em. We’re not in a desert, and you’re not a catgirl. I’ve met your kind before—shape-shifting, amorphous slimes, always taking the form of something I love. Usually it’s my late wife or a dear friend, but pretending to be a catgirl is taking it too far.” He sniffed.
She hmphed, and said, “You’re only half-right, outworlder.” She let out a trilling sound, and a moment later, the world flickered out of existence.
With the veil lifted, Logan could see the world for what it really was. Gone were the tan-brown desert and the shifting sands. In their place was a world of ash. White and grey specks drifted through a sunless sky, cold and desolate. Looking down, he saw that his feet were buried ankle-deep in the stuff. So the feeling of sand had been real, sort of. He wondered what it was made of.
Dreading what he would see, he raised his eyes once more, only to see the same catgirl shivering in her shawl before him.
“This is what I actually look like,” she said, pricking her claw against his neck. “Now how about dropping that gun and sticking your hands in the air?”
“So catgirls are real.” Logan wondered aloud, feeling hope swelling in his chest.
“I… guess?” She seemed uneasy about the way he looked at her. “So about that gun—"
“What is this place?” He asked, prodding his blaster against her stomach. “I’m pretty sure it looked like a desert world from outside. Don’t tell me you have some, some kind of planet-wide hologram going on. That would be… I don’t know, prohibitively expensive, and very concerning.”
“Yes,” she said, straight-faced. “The hologram covers the whole solar system, in fact. We are at the center of a powerful criminal empire spanning the galaxy. The white ash is made from cremating the corpses of all who have dared to oppose us, and soon you will join their ranks.”
“Woah, really?” Logan said, raising an eyebrow. They must deal in trafficking, then.
“No, I lied. Although, usually that gets a bigger reaction out of outworlders. Now come on, you can surrender now or wait until my backup gets here, and then it’ll get messy. You choose.”
“I think I’ll wait for more catgirls to show up, thanks.”
She hissed. “It’s your lucky day. Here they are now, actually.”
From behind mountains of ash, they plodded forwards. All varieties of colors, from dusky to snow-white to calico, but all sporting the same unmistakable ears and tails. Logan’s heart beat with excitement, until he noticed the strange metal tubes being pointed at him from all angles.
“Ah, am I correct in assuming that those are your planet’s version of blasters?”
The catgirl retracted her claw from his neck and nodded in confirmation. “They’ll blast a big hole right through you.” She stretched her arms and yawned wide, letting herself relax now that her reinforcements were here.
Logan dropped the blaster to his side. “Well, shit.” Surrounded by armed enemies on all sides, he had no choice but to obey.
It was then that he had a really stupid idea. One that would probably get him killed, but which would be really funny if it worked.
His blaster had a laser scope that shined a visible red dot on his target when toggled on. An attached laser pointer, in other words. If these catgirls were anything like the felines he knew on Earth…
Hell, it was worth a shot.
[To be continued? Or maybe not. I didn’t know how to end this, and I felt pretty silly writing it :c]

I have never posted before only read post. But I'm desperate to find answers on what possibly is wrong with my puppy. To start this off, I got my baby when he was 4 weeks old, the mother stopped feeding the litter, so we got my baby and his sister also and bottle fed them until they were switched to wet food. I got their first set of shots in the middle of April. All was well and they both were normal puppies. One day I noticed my baby wasn't acting like his usual self. He felt hot, and wasn't playful with his sister. I took him to the vet and he was given a shot of antibiotics. (possibilities were, virus, ear infection, parvo, or a cold) two days later he was still hot and developed a limp and had a knot on the shoulder of the leg he wouldn't put weight on. I took my baby to a different vet that i thought would be more thorough. ( I felt judged, and dismissed by the first vet like it was my fault because they were due for the second rounds of shots and they were over due by a week). I informed the new vet that both puppies missed their second rounds of shots by a week due to a busy work schedule and plans to take them on my first day off which was the dog i noticed that my baby was sick. I told the new vet that the first vet had given a shot of antibiotics and the possible causes, and that now my baby has a new symptom of black goopy guck coming from his ears and still had a fever. I showed her the knot on his neck and the new one that had popped up over night, and his limping. The new vet made the diagnoses of just a really bad ear infection. So my baby was given an oral antibiotic, and pain meds for the limp and ear drops. The knot went down on his neck to pea size, all meds were about finished when we went back to the vet because he still had new ones popping up and new symptoms. He became to have sores on his snout and his eyes were swollen. Back to the vet we went. This time we got a diagnoses of PUPPY STRANGLES. This could explain every symptom he had. We got a refill on the antibiotics, steroids, and more ear meds. Since that day my baby has had multiple knots pop up, some in places where no lymph nodes are located. SIDE NOTE (Sister puppy was taken in to new vet also and got her second set of shots), we went back to the vet on Thursday the 30th. The knot of the side of his neck was the size of a golf ball if not bigger. (the babies are CHIWEENIE-YORKIE-TERRIERS) AS a small dog its was very noticeable. This trip the knot was ultrasound and the vet stuck a needle in it to see what fluid was in it to try and test it. IT was pus, but the back of the knot is a blood clot. Several of the knots are swollen lymph nodes, some are abscesses(without injury) and some are blood clots. The knot know has gone down since being drained. The back of the knot is still there and hard. (none of the knots are sore or he doesn't so any signs of discomfort when you touch or squeeze them). This time we left with a vitamin supplement and told to change his food. The vet is thinking he may have an autoimmune disease or deficiency. If this treatment doesn't work, the vet is going to put him to sleep, lance the knots and test the fluid in them. The vet only wants to do this as a last resort because he is little and we don't know what were dealing with. We are just perplexed on what this could be, also i have spoken with several online vets and called other local vets to see if that have heard of such thing in a puppy this age and they have all said the same thing. So that brought me here to this side of the internet. He is currently taking two antibiotics, a steroid, a vitamin supplement, and a new diet. Since seeing the new vet he was eating and drinking normally he has gained weight due to the steroids. He is playful and active. He doesn't act sick, but you can look at him and see he's doesn't feel well at times. Has anyone experienced this issue with a puppy and what causes and treatments were used. I am desperate for answers to make sure this baby is well taken care of. I am planning to order a DNA genetic test as well.

I, 29, female, married my 32, male, husband 3 years ago.
I met my husband about 6 years ago while I was in my last year in university and he was in the workforce. I attended university in my home state. I lived on campus and had an on-campus job working as a barista. During my last year, I met a new co-worker named Alex, male, who I quickly became friends with. Alex was one year below me and lived 30 minutes away from my hometown. Most of my coworkers were pretty close so it was not unusual for us to spend in between class time together, or even spend the night at each others dorm rooms. Nothing sexual, just movies, junk food, and good vibes.
Prior to meeting my now husband, I was pretty deep into the online dating scene but was growing very tired of the charades. I frequently told Alex about my endeavors and he would often offer me good advice on the dating scene. Alex had recently broken up with his girlfriend of 4 years so we kind of understood each other in that way. Early on in our friendship, we both established that we were not interested in each other, and only liked each other as friends.
Alex and I told each other everything. We talked about of pasts, about our dreams, and everything in between. We spent countless shifts together and spent many hours binge-watching our favorite tv shows.
At the beginning of the spring semester, my 6- month long situationship broke it off with me, and I was devastated. I confided in Alex and cried all night long in his dorm room. For some reason, his attitude and tone were different that night. He was judging me for online dating and being sexually active outside of a relationship. He told me, "this is the reason that I don't have sex with a girl I'm not dating, because then they become attached." I was so devastated at the break up and even more with Alex's words. I did not have the courage to tell him that his words were hurting me.
Fast forward to a few weeks later, I met my now husband online. Things were great, and as my relationship with my husband grew, I slowly stepped away from my university friendships and with Alex. Alex never met my husband while we were in university as my husband lived about an hour away, but he heard all of the stories, and followed along on social media. Alex was very supportive the whole way through.
As the school year came to an end, I prepared myself for the usual end of school year rituals. Since Alex was not graduating with me and our other friends, I did not see him much. But since we lived only 30 minutes away from each other, I knew we would stay in touch. Right before graduation, Alex congratulated me on finishing my studies and finding a great man. This was the first time of the many times he would remind me of "the night you cried all night in my dorm room." I was shocked to say the least. Again, I did not have the courage to speak up about how his actions then, and now, were hurtful.
I graduated and began my first job soon after. Alex and I met for lunch a few times that year before he told me he would be moving to the other side of the country with his best friend after graduation. We said our good byes and he promised he would be back.
That year I moved in with my husband, and the next year we got engaged. Alex and I occasionally video called and messaged each other. When Alex finally came back into town, he made it a point to come see us in our new home and to celebrate us. At this point, it had been two years since Alex and I were baristas together in university. Naturally we drifted apart, but we were still friends. It was really nice to see him, but I no longer felt the same companionship I felt with him in university. Alex had mentioned that when my husband and I would get married, he would love to attend as my "brother." I found this title to be very odd as I do have three older brothers, all of whom I am very close to. But Alex explained that his relationship with his sisters was very strained, and he saw me as a sister. So I let it slide even though I was not so comfortable with calling him my brother.
Over the next two years, Alex and I really drifted apart. We rarely talked and when we did, it was usually just when he complimented my outfit or makeup on a picture I'd post. I did think it was a bit flirtatious, but I did not pay too much mind to it. After all we were friends, and I was his "sister."
Soon enough my husband and I picked a wedding date and announced our bridal party. One day, Alex calls me up and asks for the wedding details so he can fly in for our wedding. At this time, I really did not want to invite Alex to the wedding as I did not view Alex in the same way anymore. I could only invite such few friends as my husband and I both have large families and it felt like inviting him was cutting into our guest list. I invited some friends from university but none of our mutual barista friends. I could not gain the courage to tell him the truth, so I invited Alex to the wedding and the rehearsal dinner. I did state that he was not allowed a plus-one due to the aforementioned guest-list restraints; a decision I live to regret.
Since Alex still had relatives close by to my hometown (where the wedding was to be held), I knew him coming for the wedding would not be a big deal since his lodging and day-to-day schedule would most likely be with his family. Alex flew in 5 days before the wedding and insisted on spending atleast two nights at my house. That was the last thing I wanted to do during the week of my wedding. I convinced myself that Alex flew all the way across the country for my wedding, and the least I could do was spend some extra time with him. I was able to bring Alex down to one night as I had a very busy week scheduled with the rehearsal dinner on Friday night and the wedding on Saturday. Alex spent Wednesday night at my house where he, my husband, and I spent the night sharing two bottles of wine and playing board games. Alex was visibly more drunk than we were. Before the end of the night, Alex started falling over and tossing around some vintage collectibles I kept in my dining room as decor. I quickly brought him to our guest room, where I asked him to stay put for the rest of the evening. Alex left early the next morning without saying much. I was relieved to have him gone.
The rehearsal dinner came and went and Alex was a great guest. He did not have too much to drink and mingled with our families. I introduced him to everyone as, Alex, a friend from university. However, he would quickly interject with, "her brother." I think most of our families saw I was uncomfortable with the term, and only referred to him as Alex. Wedding day came and my husband and I were happily wed before our families and friends. Only our bridal party and closest relatives were invited to the photoshopt following the ceremony, but somehow Alex also came along. I did not pay too much mind, and figured, he did not want to arrive to the reception alone.
At the time I did not know, but my husband's best man, Bryan, brought a bottle of liquor to share amongst the groomsmen. In an effort to not have Alex be alone, Bryan asked him to join them.
By the time we got to the reception, everything went well. We all had a great time and Alex and I danced a song. He was very emotional during the dance and again, reminded me about the night I cried in his dorm room. He told me how happy he was that I can go from that night, to my wedding night. At this point I was very annoyed as I could tell he was visibly drunk. Again, I would later find out that Bryan and Alex would sneak off during the reception to do shots.
At the end of the night I was fed up with Alex and planned on heading back to the hotel where the rest of the bridal party was staying. I said my goodbyes to Alex and thanked him for flying out to my wedding. During our goodbye, my bridesmaid, Jess, surprised me with the news of a surprise after party at her and her sister, Kim's place just 10 minutes away. Alex immediately insisted on coming along as my "brother." I absolutely did not want Alex to come to the after-party but I could not get him to go home. I also could not give him to someone else to take care of as he really did not know anyone else. I told Alex he could only come if someone came to pick him up and take him to the party as he was too drunk to drive his car. Alex agreed and called a relative to pick him up.
My husband and I arrived at the after-party hosted by Jess. I was so happy that the party was low-key with only a few drinks, food, and a light crowd. After all, I spent the past day and a half hosting. We were all enjoying ourselves when Alex walks through the front door. Alex appears even more drunk and is slurring his words. I am immediately embarrassed and even more so that I could not put my foot down and tell him to go home. I welcome Alex in to the main room of the house and sit him on a chair and bring him some water. I am watching Alex from a distance making sure he's not getting into trouble. Jess approaches me a little while into the party stating that Alex is making Kim, her sister, uncomfortable. She told me that Alex asked Kim to dance, but she respectfully declined citing she has a boyfriend and he is in the other room. Alex did not accept that answer and insisted she dance with him. I angrily approach Alex and told him to leave Kim alone.
I bring Alex to a seat close to me so I can keep a closer eye on him. At this point, my feet are swollen from a whole day's activities and I had a hard time unlacing the straps on my heels. I asked Bryan to help me loosen my heel straps as my husband was in another room. Once Bryan unloosens my heel straps, Alex immediately crawls up to me and starts massaging my feet. I am horrified as is Bryan and everyone else in the room. I immediately pull my feet back and Bryan helps Alex up and puts him back in the chair. My husband comes back into the room and I tell him I want to go back to the hotel. I ask my husband to call a ride share for Alex, when Bryan tells me he saw Alex pull up in his own car. I am immediately angered at Alex's decision to drive his car while drunk, but also mad at myself for not standing up to him. I tell Alex I am leaving and he needs to leave his car at Jess' and pick it up in the morning. Alex insists he will be leaving soon and not to worry. Jess looked at me in my distress and told me not to worry, and that she would make sure he gets in a rideshare. As my husband grabbed my coat, Alex looked at me and said, "when the love of your life gets married to someone else." I was so incredibly angry with Alex. I was embarrassed, I was shocked, and I was so disappointed. I don't know if Alex meant what he said, or if he was just drunk, but I had enough of Alex. I left Alex at the part and went home with my husband.
The next day, I woke up around noon to a text message from Alex, thanking me for a great party, and wishing to extend gratitude to Jess and Kim for their hospitality. I immediately phoned Jess to recap the rest of the party. Jess informed me that Alex did not take a ride share the night before. He spent the night at Jess' as he passed out on the living room floor. Jess, to not further distress me, ended the night early, and cleaned up the house. In the morning, Jess and Kim woke up to find Alex had left the house very early in the morning, but not without leaving behind a surprise for them. Alex had vomited all over the bathroom; missed the toilet as he went #2; had 💩 smeared on the bathroom rug; and to top it off, Alex left his 💩 stained boxers on the bathroom floor.
My jaw hit the floor. I could not process the level of disgust that I felt for Alex. I apologized profusely to Jess and Kim and offered to come clean up immediately. They knew it was not fault, but I felt absolutely horrible for inviting this man into their home.
From that moment on, I decided to ghost Alex. No matter how much anger I felt towards him, I did not feel it was worth my time. I wanted nothing to do with him. I didn't block him initially, I just ignored his calls and texts. He eventually reached out to my husband, and that's when I blocked him and asked my husband to do the same. I still feel bad about ghosting Alex, because a part of me feels he does not remember what happened, and I should give him some closure. The other part of me realizes he's a drunk and ruined parts of my wedding and did horrible things at my bridesmaid's house. I want to reach out sometimes, but then I remember that Jess and Kim had to clean up his 💩 smears. Idk, AITA for ghosting my "brother" after my wedding?

My cat, Jack, would have been 14 in August. 3 months ago, he was diagnosed with GI lymphoma. He'd had elevated liver values for several months, but at the same time was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. The hope was getting him on a stable dose of methimzaole would help to bring down his liver values. It didn't. He went in for thyroid/liver bloodwork in February and the vet noticed he was jaundiced so I immediately scheduled an abdominal ultrasound. The ultrasound revealed that his pancreas was enlarged, his GI tract thickened, his lymph nodes inflamed, and he had multiple cysts in his liver. He was diagnosed with "probably" large-cell GI lymphoma and the vet recommended palliative care. He immediately went on prednisolone and the plan was basically, when new symptoms pop up we'll deal with them then.
He was doing so good, still very energetic for a 14 year old, good appetite, the steroids and an increase in methimazole dosage helped get his weight up, he seemed fine. Now, Jack has always had seasonal allergies. He was chronically sneezy and spring has always made it worse, so when he got a nosebleed about a month ago I attributed it to that. He's had occasional nosebleeds since but nothing major. Then Monday I set up my apartment balcony with netting and let him hang out outside. His nose started bleeding so I took him inside thinking it was the pollen and waited for it to stop, but it didn't - not for long at least. He had on-and-off nosebleeds for the rest of the week, but I had a vet appointment already scheduled on Friday so I was planning on asking about allergy medications.
Thursday everything changed, his nose started bleeding early in the afternoon and just kept getting worse. It progressed fro just a little blood around his nose to dripping everywhere. It got so bad that I decided that I couldn't wait for his appointment Friday and I took him to the emergency vet hoping they'd be able to give him something to make the bleeding stop. The stress from getting him in his carrier made the bleeding so much worse and by the time we got to the emergency vet his face was covered in blood and there were blood drips all over his carrier.
I spoke to the ER vet and gave him Jack's history, including his lymphoma diagnosis and the history of his liver issues. The conclusion was that the bleeding was the result of one of two options. 1) his liver is now in failure and he is unable to clot properly or 2) his lymphoma has spread and the bleeding is caused by a tumor in his nose. Both options had no solution and things were only going to get worse, and when the vet suggested immediate euthanasia I was floored. It was too soon, he wasn't ready, he was still doing so good, this was just a nosebleed! But I also wanted to let him go while he was still him. I didn't want things to get worse and I didn't know if the bleeding would ever stop. I didn't want to do it at the vet though, I have two other cats and I couldn't bare the thought of Jack just leaving and never coming home. I also didn't want his last moments to be in an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar smells, so the vet got me a list of home euthanasia vets and I called around until I found someone who could come that night.
I took Jack home and we were able to hang out for a few more hours, but he never calmed down enough to be snuggly. He was such a snuggly boy so it was heartbreaking that he wouldn't allow me to hold him or sit on my lap. He stayed close but was so uncomfortable. The bleeding never stopped, he was struggling to breathe through his mouth with the blood running down his face. He wouldn't eat even his favorite treats, presumably because he couldn't smell and his mouth tasted like blood.
When the vet finally showed up at 11pm he tried to hide, which was so out of character. Every new person, ever vet visit, he would always greet them and rub against them, talk, and ask for pets. But not this time, he knew something was up. My other cats stayed in the room, my oldest cat actually laid down in front of the vet and supervised her getting prepared, but when it was time to bring Jack in, he was hiding behind the toilet and when I picked him up he dug into my shoulder wanting to be let back down.
I held him as he went and once he was gone I looked at his face and wish I hadn't. He wasn't Jack anymore. He looked wrong and he was limp and all his life was gone. I'm haunted by the look of his lifeless face. And now that he's gone and I'm left with blood all over I haven't been able to clean it up. I know that sounds gross, but I can't. The sweater I was wearing when I was saying goodbye is covered in blood and I can't wash it and I can't throw it away.
I don't know why I even typed all of this up or what I'm trying to get out of this, but I just had to get it all out.

I met my bf 3 years ago and he seemed like a really sweet guy at first. I knew he was struggling with leaving the military, but I had no idea how bad things actually were.
Quick backstory: My bf has high functioning autism but his mom had him in therapy very young, and by the time he was 17 he was a happy and healthy teenager. He joined the military and did great until the 3rd year in.
He started dating a girl and things got really serious, then she started cheating on him. He also started dealing with issues at work with someone higher ranking then him (I am not familiar with the military so I can't describe the situation well, sorry).
So on top of the horrible relationship where he was being cheated on, he was getting bullied at work and even physically assaulted a few times. Some of the guys teamed up and ended up jumping him a few times. When my bf would mess up at work the higher ranking guy would hit him with metal objects, it was bad.
My bf ended up having a psychotic break where he had a few attempts so they sent him to the psych ward, then he got out. He was a few months away from finishing his contract out, so it messed with his head really badly. He felt like a failure.
When he came back home the girl ended up leaving him for the guy she cheated on him with, further pushing him into his breakdown. She also spread lies about him because people that knew them were calling her out about cheating on him, so my bf lost a lot of friends and his reputation took a hit.
He began drinking heavily and he was having fits of rage/panic attacks along with S. attempts.
I had NO idea it was that bad, or I wouldn't have ever gotten with him.
6 months into us dating he started having panic attacks around me which I didn't mind helping with, until he eventually just dropped the facade and let me see the real him.
By then we had moved in together and I felt trapped. I desperately wanted to move out of my parents house so it was dumb on my part to move in with him so early into our relationship.
For the past 3 years I have had hope that he could get better. I have now lost all hope.
In the last 3 years I realized that he has a major issue with alcohol and when he gets drunk his emotions are amplified by 1000. He kept getting into fist fights, two of which I was hurt in trying to stop. He had two S. attempts in the parking lot of his favorite bar, he would get upset and just sprint away from everyone where we would have to search for him, he would scream and cry, it was a lot.
I was able to get him to cut back on drinking, but he refuses to stop. He doesn't get drunk anymore thank God, but when I would beg him to stop drinking he would get defensive and angry and start fights with me.
He has been diagnosed with bpd, bipolar disorder, literally anything the VA can think of to explain his insane behavior.
He would have daily "panic attacks" or episodes, I don't even know what to call them but he would have a melt down where he is hurting himself, screaming, crying, and breaking stuff. These episodes could last for hours.
He has broken so many doors, broken blinds, he threw a barstool in our kitchen across the room and broke the floor, I can go on and on and on.
My life revolves around him now. He has ruined so many things for me because of his anxiety and depression issues. I resent him.
On my birthday one year he got upset because I was frustrated with him for not putting more effort in. He didn't get me a present or plan anything and I was sad. So he took a bunch of his medication, went into a psychotic break, and I had to have a friend help me drag him to the ER where he freaked out and physically assaulted our friend.
I had to repeatedly punch and kick him to get him off our friend. It took 3 cops to restrain him.
I have had to call the cops multiple times because he is losing his mind and it is going on for hours. I have had to stop what I am doing and come find him because he is freaking out somewhere.
I am tired, I am angry, and I am so mentally done.
Every time we find a medication that works, it has some crazy ass side effect. So he will be completely normal for 6 months, and then boom the medication is attacking his thyroid, or the medication made him gain 45 pounds in 3 months and he looks badly swollen. Or his lab work is awful and he needs to stop taking the meds before he dies or something.
Then I have to deal with the manic and depressive episode that comes with us switching his meds, then we try meds that make things worse instead of better, until we finally find a med that works again. Only to start the cycle all over again 6 months later when he is having some insane side effect.
He is in therapy, he is taking his medication, but to him that is enough. He thinks that is him trying. He does nothing else to better his life.
I cook. I clean. I do everything around the house. His mom and I are like his personal assistants. We book his doctors appointments, I wake him up for work, I remind him of his appointments, I do everything but wipe his ass for him.
He is 100% disabled with the VA so he only has to work 2 days a week. The rest of the week he just bums around or he goes and hangs out with his friends.
While I work full time, I take care of him full time, I take on all of the mental load of our relationship, and I am a full time college student. I get no help or emotional support from him.
There is so much more I could say but this would be pages long.
I will probably get comments saying to leave but it isn't that easy. I don't have a supportive family or friend group. I have two cats that I would have to give away which would destroy me. I have an apartment with a lease I am stuck in for another year, and a life I have built down here that I don't want to lose.
I work from home for his mom which helps me get my college degree. I have adhd so when I was working full time in retail and trying to do school I kept flunking out. I would study after work but be so exhausted that I wasn't retaining it.
I need to do in person classes and with this job I can.
It just doesn't feel fair that if I left him, I would lose everything and have to give my pets away to someone, and have to put my degree on hold again. So I can either blow up my life and lose literally everything I have, or I can just put up with his craziness and just distance myself emotionally to survive through it until I can get my college degree and a good paying job.
It just really sucks. I am exhausted. Some days I hate him. Some days I am mean to him because I just feel so done. Some days I have bad thoughts like I wish I didn't wakeup, or I wish that he didn't wakeup because it would make my life easier.
It feels like there is no solution so that is why I came here to vent.

From the beginning...
Cast

Part 2, Chapter 10

The next morning dawns cold and clear. It is plain that autumn is upon the land, and with the Great Glacier just leagues to the north, winter will come soon. The party goes about their morning business, eating (everyone), checking the state of the beard and deciding whether or not to shave it off (Arthur, generally, but also Atticus as Novos doesn’t grow a beard and Zander doesn’t shave his), climbing into armor (pretty much everyone except Dillium, Felicity, and Pocky), feeding and loading horses and asses (pretty much everyone, but particularly Zander, Arthur, Atticus, and Pocky), and finally packing up the pavillionsol (Dillium). Ready for the day’s journey, the group mounts up. On cue, the guide appears, apparently having prepared well ahead. If he’s irritated that the party slept all the way until dawn, he has the good grace to keep that to himself.
Felicity speaks up. “We’ve changed our minds, actually. I don’t think there’s any particular benefit in going to Dragon’s Perch—”
“I agree.”
“—so we’re going to go to Samek instead.”
“Samek? Hmmm. Do they know you are coming? If they don’t, it will take them a while.”
“No, they don’t know we’re coming, that I am aware of.”
The guide nods once and sets out. Much of the day is uneventful, and it does warm up to a comfortable level. By late afternoon, those with tender backsides are wondering when the ride will conclude when the guide raises his hand in a universal gesture of ‘stop and shut up a minute.’ The party still hasn’t learned that gesture, but fortunately there are no giants about [1]. “We’re here,” is all he says.
“Where?” “I don’t see anything.” “What are we supposed to see?” Like tourists on vacation, they peer around in all directions. They can’t see the entrance for the hill. Or rather, the entrance to the gnomish town of Samek is so well hidden in the side of the hill that for a while, only Dillium can see the faint outline of the round doorway. One by one, Flea, Arthur, and Zander finally pick it out. Novos is absolutely certain they are playing a prank on him. Arthur is first. Knocking on the hill seems odd, but practically before he gets a third knock, a small hole opens up around waist height. Two beady little eyes peer out (at Arthur’s belt).
“What!?”
“We are here—”
“So I see.” The window closes.
Zander walks up and knocks. The same window opens, and the same beady little eyes peer out.
“What!?”
“Do you know who I am?” Zander asks.
The beady little eyes look him up and down. “No,” and the window closes.
Dillium tries next. Knock, window, eyes. “Good day. We are here to see—”
“So see.” Window shuts.
Novos walks up. “I know how to do this.” Knock, window, eyes, increasingly aggravated tone. “Let us in.”
“No.”
Felicity has had enough of this. Walking up to the door, she stands for a moment gathering her thoughts. Knock, window, eyes, aggravated tone. “Good day. I’m here on behalf of the Duke of Soravia to see the wise men of your town, or those in charge.”
“Which ones?”
“What?”
“Which ones, the wise men, or those that are in charge?”
“How about if we start with the ones in charge, and perhaps they will decide to allow us to speak with the wise ones.”
The beady little eyes peer out, look around at the party, and appear to give that some thought. “Wait here.” The window closes.
Minutes pass. Tens of minutes pass. Novos gets bored and walks up to the door. He barely gets a third knock in before the window opens. A different set of beady little eyes peers out, and a different aggravated voice says, “What do you want now?”
“We’ve been waiting for a while, and—”
“—And you’ll continue to wait!.” The window slams shut unnecessarily roughly.
“Why you—” Rough arms grab Novos from behind and pull him away before he can do something regretful.
“We’ll wait, as they’ve asked,” Felicity says. She looks around to ask the guide how long they can expect to wait, but he’s disappeared.
The evening passes. As the cold sets in, Atticus and Pocky gather enough light branches for a fire. There’s no benches or logs to sit on, so they squat or sit on the ground. Arthur has taken to pulling off portions of his armor and working on polishing and repairing the scorch marks from the lava snakes [2]. Atticus and Mar debate the relative benefits of following the letter of the law versus being merciful, though in the end, both of them seem to be arguing the same things in violent agreement. Pocky falls asleep against Modred’s side as Beaker plays with a bone left over from… Wait, where did he get that bone anyway?
Finally, the reality that the night is upon them sets in. A proper camp is set, and watches begin. Zander takes the first watch, but sees nothing of interest. He does hear the chirping of grasshoppers, the droning of the cicadas, and the baying of the hounds. Suddenly, the hounds stop. Unnerved, Zander wakes Arthur, who has the next watch. Arthur, Atticus, and Zander take a turn around the camp, but cannot see nor hear anything that sounds like dogs. Arthur agrees to start his watch a few minutes early and Zander takes Pocky inside the pavillionsol to sleep. Arthur’s, and then Dillium’s watches pass uneventfully. Novos, as normal, takes the last watch. As usual, he is so wrapped up with his puzzle box that he notices absolutely nothing.
The cold morning brings breakfast, bickering, and an irritated Novos marching up to the door to bang on it. “We’ve been here all night,” he informs the guard.
“Yes. Yes you have.” The window closes.
Knock. Window. Eyes. “When will we see—”
“When it is time.” The window closes.
Before he can knock again, Dillium grabs his wrist, pushing him back, she squares herself to the door. “When it is time, please inform us.” She says to the closed window.
The window opens and two beady little eyes peer out. A slightly irritated voice replies, “What else would we do?” The window closes.
Several hours pass as the valley warms up. Arthur, Pocky, Atticus, and Mar all work on armor, doing the necessary daily ritual of dusting, oiling, checking rivets to make sure they are still tight and sound. Polish is applied, worked into the metal, and removed. Bickering, some good natured and others not, flows. At midmorning, the guide turns up suddenly, and squats down near the fire. Minutes later, the window opens and familiar eyes peer out. Felicity quickly crosses over to the door.
“Is the council ready for us?” She asks.
“Council? You wanted to speak with those who lead.”
“Yes. I assume that would be your leadership council.” Felicity replies.
“So it is. So it is. There certainly are a lot of you. You can’t all come.” The window closes.
Felicity thinks quickly and makes a motion to Dillium. Knocking gently, she waits for the window to open. “How many of us may come?” She asks sweetly.
“Uhm… “ The window closes. A minute later it re-opens. “Three.” The gnome says.
“Fine. I agree.”
“You agree? I mean, Yes, of course you agree. Come, come!” Suddenly in a hurry, the gnome opens the door, which slides open silently.
As Felicity and Dillium take a step toward the door, the guide steps up behind them. “Where are you going?” Flea asks imperiously.
“The little ones know me.”
“Which ones?”
The guide thinks. “Mayhaps all of them?” With a slight shrug, Felicity accepts that, and they all pass into a dark room, barely tall enough to stand up in.
Dillium is the tallest of the small group, and she has to stoop over to get through the passageway. The guide bends his head down a bit, but Felicity strides forward as if she owns the place, the top of her hair only occasionally brushing the ceiling of the passage. There are guards in dark metal armor in front and behind, but the guard who let them in the door is wearing a much more colorful shirt. As their eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, they note that there are luminescent lichens on the walls, providing a dim light that casts no shadows and fails to illuminate the armored gnomes.
The corridor stretches on for ages. There are branching tunnels to either side, and once, down. Tiny faces can be seen in the dim light as word spreads of the Big’uns. Dillium’s back is screaming by the time they finally reach a room and stop. A door on one side of the room is guarded by two more of the dark-skinned, dark-armored gnomes and a small fire is burning in the middle of the room. The benches around the room are designed for shorter legs and smaller butts, so the guide simply squats down. Dillium sits and starts to work the kinks out of her back. The guards don’t speak, but every once in a while, a face peers in through the open doorway they came in. Some faces are much smaller than others, and a motherly hand frequently grabs the tot and hustles them along.
The trio waits.
***
Pocky and Zander practice sword work as Atticus watches and occasionally tosses out suggestions. Mar naps. Arthur works on removing scorch marks from his armor while Novos plays with his puzzle box and loafs. Something draws Arthur’s attention. As he looks up, he sees eyes staring at him intently peering out from a bush. Without breaking eye contact, he feels around until he grabs Novos’ head and points it at the bush. Novos stares, uncertain what he’s meant to be looking at. “Zander!” Arthur hisses. He points at the bush with too many eyes. Well, two is too many for a bush. Zander looks. He looks some more. Arthur looks away for a moment, and when he looks back, the eyes are gone. Everyone runs over and crowds around the bush. Novos sees what looks like prints—paw prints not unlike Modred’s pawprints, though Modred is being lazy over next to the pavillionsol. Novos looks around, but sees no other paw prints. The men walk around the bush looking for other tracks, but only manage to obscure everything.
***
An hour passes. The guide lounges as if he has nothing on his mind. Dillium meditates, while Felicity tries to work out what the team’s next move should be. Somewhat abruptly, a young gnome opens the door and comes through. “Ready are you?” The darkened room has only a few dim lights. An ancient gnome sits on a three-legged stool in the middle of the room, a small rod in his hand. Eight or nine other gnomes cluster around the small room, some sitting on tiny gnome-sized benches, others standing. Any whispering that might have been going on ceases when the Big’uns come into the chamber.
The eldest speaks. “Warren. Several turnings it has been since last among us you came. Tell. What is the state of the above-realm?”
“They grow bolder. I have seen them throughout the valley, and without fear. If you are to act, you might contemplate doing so soon.” The gnomes chatter amongst themselves in a foreign tongue. The elder lets it go for a few minutes, then he raps on the floor with his rod. Silence returns.
“As I have feared it is. Soon must we act. Well to see you it is. Not so long to visit should you wait.” Turning his attention to Felicity, he inquires, “Please to tell name and purpose for disturbing.”
Felicity tells who she is, and allows Dillium to introduce herself. Flea announces that war is soon to be upon the land. The Duke of Soravia needs friends and allies for the coming conflict, and wishes to include the gnomes. The gnomes chatter nervously, and some of the chatter sounds of anger or fear. Again, the elder waits several minutes and then raps his rod upon the ground.
“Aware of the duke we are, but no call to extend friendship hand we have heard. What does the duke wish of us?” The chatter now is less nervous and more fearful.
“The danger to us all is great, but the duke understands that each should contribute within their talents and means. I suggest that your greatest assistance may lie in logistics, and supply. Perhaps providing some of the greatly admired gnomish craftsmanship would help to raise funds. Any assistance that you willingly provide for the benefit of one and all is exactly enough.” The chatter and babble of the gnomes in the room sounds almost relieved, but still a touch fearful. The elder allows it to go on for several minutes before he raps on the floor once. Saying something in gnomish, he raises his hand. One by one, the gnomes lift their hands out parallel to the floor. It takes a moment or two, but finally all of them agree.
“Determine what we can contribute, we must. If any. As talk we must, a favor for us could you do.” He speaks a few words of gnomish before continuing.
***
“So what is inside that puzzle box you keep playing with?” Arthur asks. He seems more tired of the delay than curious, and is simply passing the time. Mar casts an irritated glance at Novos.
“Dunno. Perhaps a great treasure. Maybe all the misfortune in the world. Probably nothing. Dillium gave it to me months ago.” He continues manhandling it, pushing, prodding, tapping, and so on.
Zander comes over and plops down next to Novos. “Can I have a go?”
“Sure.” Novos hands the box over to Zander, who takes it gingerly in his large rough hands. After a minute or two of working with it to no avail, he hands it over to a beckoning Arthur who seems to have seen something the others missed. He didn’t. Atticus and Mar both have a go before Pocky takes a turn. In three deft moves, the box is opened, revealing an empty space in the middle, roughly large enough for three large silver coins stacked on top of each other. He shrugs as he hands it back to Novos.
With a sigh, Novos starts trying to close the box.
*** “Many generations ago, when but a babe my own great-grandsire’s great-grandsire was, did Callarduran Smoothands of a king tell us. When nigh was the time would he arise. Half of a golden crown he gave us, and a tomb of a great warrior king showed he us. When greatest was our need, take our half of the golden crown to the tomb we are to do, and with the other half reunite it. Drawing close the time is. Our enemies the tomb have discovered we fear. The other half of the crown have they stolen. Taken our birthright, they have. The other half of the crown return to us?” [3]
Dillium recognizes Callarduran Smoothands from a lecture that seemed to last forever, but probably was just before lunchtime. Callarduran is the god of the Svirfneblin, and is held in high regard—perhaps more so than the head of the gnomish pantheon, Garl Glittergold [4].
“Who are these enemies?” Felicity asks.
“Evil ones they are. From us they rob. Our people they kill. Monsters they are.”
An older gnome arrives from the darkness. He is wearing dark armor, and carrying a soft bag made of what appears to be moss. The eldest reaches into the bag and withdraws an arc of gold. It certainly appears to be what you’d expect half a tiara or head band to look like, but it is nearly entirely devoid of ornamentation or decoration. The full crown must be rather plain indeed. Dismissing the trio with a “Think on your words we will,” Felicity, Dillium, Warren (the guide), and Ser Reginald the gnome are escorted from the hall and out of Samek.
Ser Reginald greets them as friends, and chatters through much of the trek up to the surface. He says he is one of a very few remaining ‘royal escorts,’ first named soon after Callarduran Smoothands gave them their half of the crown. They have, over many many many many many many generations (he was unable to count them all), been responsible for guarding the crown and preparing for the arrival of the king. He’s fought the evil ones, and admitted to hunting and killing them in their beds, but would not give a physical description of them. He also admitted that he knew precisely where the tomb was, but had never been inside, “as the time was not yet to hand.”
Finally, they reach the doorway to the outside. With a warning to shield their eyes lest they be struck blind by the sun, Ser Reginald leads the group out to find the rest of the party scrambling to their feet. To the consternation of Ser Reginald, they take the time to break camp, saddle their beasts, and mount up. Ser Reginald wants nothing to do with the horses, so the party creeps along at gnomish walking pace. It is quite possibly the slowest escort quest ever.
Several hours later, the group approaches yet another clearing when they everyone hear a loud rumbling WHOMP! Everyone recognizes it as the sound of rocks falling inside a cave or building. Ahead, a cloud of dust pours out of a cut stone entrance into a hill. “We need to get a move on. The evil ones are already inside!” cries Ser Reginald.
Leaving the horses and asses outside, the party enters the main hall. Arthur asks Atticus to remain with Pocky and the animals, but Mar accompanies the group inside. The moderately sized room has two doorways, though both appear to have been blocked by the recent rock movement. A few minutes of contemplation leads Arthur to believe that one side would take considerable effort to unblock, while the other could be done rather quickly. As he gets to work, the others take in their surroundings. Just inside the door is a carving in an archaic form of common that says “Allies Over Enemies”. Zander notes that there is some indication that there is a test, and one of the mostly broken archways has the word ‘Wit’ carved above it. Felicity notes that according to the archaic writing, there are two tests inside. Dillium is drawn to the faded frescos, though they tend to depict war and destruction.
Soon enough Arthur has the passageway cleared well enough, and the party groups up to go into a large room. The door slides shut smoothly behind them, though there is a door on the far side. Arthur inspects it, “just in case” it is unlocked. It isn’t. The room is more or less devoid of decoration or ornamentation, but there are four columns, one each corner of the room. Novos looks at the column, but fails to note that each side has a letter on it. He does see that he can turn the column one quarter turn, so he does. Once it turns, it refuses to turn again. Members of the party spread out to try to understand the test. Someone notices that there is a small mark on the wall beside each column, but it takes everyone writing down the letters on each column before someone decides to make an effort to coordinate. Arthur suggests that since each column contains an “L”, they should turn the L’s toward the center. Novos points out that he can’t turn the column any further, but Zander turns another column easily. Mar turns another one. As Novos leans up against his column, it turns. The party realizes that the columns can be turned to spell words, and Mar identified the word that was spelled out when they entered. This gets the group going, and with some tactics employed, spell out a word that they hope will open the door. As the last column clicks into place, the door opens smoothly.
The doorway leads to a huge cavern with a five-foot wide natural stone bridge crossing what appears to be a deep, wide chasm. The cavern is pitch black, and while there might be some air movement, the ceiling is too far above and the floor of the chasm too far below to see. The party sets up a marching order with Arthur in the lead and Novos in the rear. Dillium Lights up her staff so that the humans can see and they set out. Ten or fifteen paces across, the party is surprised to come under attack by arrows and javelins. Everyone dodges out of the way of the poorly thrown darts, but one strikes home. No one can see where the javelins came from, or whether it is some sort of trap or if they were thrown. Unfortunately, no one notices that one of the party members has fallen off the stone bridge, either. At the other end of the bridge is a door that opens easily, and everyone makes it into a small foyer. Except for Felicity, who lies at the bottom of the chasm, nearly impaled by a stalagmite. [5] Novos disappears and makes his way to the bottom of the chasm where he finds Felicity and feeds her his last healing potion. Zander pulls out his Wonderous Figurine and activates it. A good-sized wyvern appears on the bridge. He tells it to go down into the chasm and bring back the human. He might have said ‘woman’ but the stone wyvern doesn’t know the difference anyway. It takes off and glides down into the chasm below, and when it finds a human, the wyvern grabs it with his sharp claws and brings it back up to Zander. Novos picks himself up, dusts himself off, and winces at the fresh puncture wounds. Zander, a little annoyed, tells the wyvern to go get the other one, and he does, fresh puncture wounds and all.
Meanwhile, Arthur, Dillium, Mar, and Ser Reginald continue on into a large room. The room is dominated by a huge stone in the middle, with some sort of gemstone embedded in. They also see a dog-like creature standing on the stone, with a piece of golden metal in one hand and a bow in the other. Ser Reginald shouts, “The evil one has the other half of the crown! Get it!” Arthur races forward and Smites the creature.
Mar snarls, “Gnolls. I should have known their stench. She manifests a Spiritual Weapon and attacks with it, then casts a Guiding Bolt. The gnoll, clearly outmatched, fires his bow (missing) and climbs down off the stone. By this time, Novos, Zander, and Felicity have come in (minus the wyvern). Novos speeds over to take a flanking position on the gnoll, but the recent puncture wounds from the wyvern still ache, and he misses entirely.
Around the same time, a larger group of gnolls, armored and armed with swords and axes, enter from the other side and take up positions. One of the larger ones raises his axe to cut down Novos, but one of the gnolls barks out something in a barking sort of bark. All of the gnolls stop and refrain from attacking. Except the one with the huge gash down his front from Arthur. He comes up with a sword and stabs at the air near Arthur. Dillium, likewise shouts for Arthur and Novos (and Mar) to stop.
“Who leads?” asks the female gnoll, as she wraps her shawl around her.
Zander raises his hand. “That would be me. I am the leader of Task Force Chimera.” He sheathes his sword and meets the female gnome in the middle of the room. “I am Zander Roaringhorn, from Cormyr. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
“Raa’ka. Ssand’r. Sand’r.” Her mouth doesn’t quite make all the sounds as she tries to get his name right. She tells Zander that they are here to fulfil a prophecy that tells of an Alpha Gnoll that will arise in their hour of need. Unfortunately, the crown is… not what they expected. Arthur climbs up on the stone and agrees that the gemstone in the middle seems to connect two pieces of a crown—there’s three pieces total, rather than the two that both the gnolls and gnomes thought.
“Give me the crown!” Ser Reginald cries. Mar snarls.
“I will not. Perhaps we should put the crown together, and then figure out what to do. It is obvious neither of us have the whole tale.” Ser Reginald, thoughtful, agrees.
“You put your piece in first, then.” He says.
“No you put yours in.” Raa’ka replies.
Arthur says, “How about you put them in together. At the same time,” clarifies when the gnolls seem unsure. He jumps down from the stone and gives Ser Reginald a boost up. Raa’ka needs no help.
Gently placing the two pieces of the crown in small cutouts in the stone that appear to be made exactly for their pieces. Ser Reginald and Raa’ka watch for a moment. “Now what?” The crown welds itself together before their eyes. The gem in the center pulses, then shines brightly. Then the whole crown sinks down into the stone. “NO!”
The room rumbles and shakes. The giant stone is cracked into pieces as Raa’ka and Ser Reginald leap to safety. As the dust swirls around and the rumbling fades away, all hear a booming voice.
“AT LAST I AM FREE!”

End of part 10.


[1] Unlike last chapter.
[2] in Chapter 8
[3] Modified slightly from Race for the Crown, Adventures of the Potbellied Kobold, by Jeff Stevens Games.
[4] The Gnomish Pantheon
[5] Remember, stalagmite “might” reach the ceiling, and stalactites hang on tite to the ceiling. Or, you can do the boring National Parks Service way of remembering.

I turned 30 this year. I am almost positive I contracted Lyme at 17, but because every doctor I've mentioned it to has insisted I was wrong I've just been living with slowly worsening EVERYTHING. Worsening mental health, pain, exhaustion, that I've been treating incorrectly for years.
But everything points to Lyme, INCLUDING my blood tests which finally confirmed a non-active infection that I'd have never known about if I didnt make my doctor walk me through all of my "completely normal" bloodwork. She assumed I'd been treated in the past- I wasn't. I was never diagnosed and never taken seriously despite living in the largest lyme hotspot in the country and spending a lot of time in the woods, not all of it carefully.
But you know what I was diagnosed and treated for at 17? Chlamydia. Mystery, symptomless Chlamydia that none of my doctors believed there was no way I contracted sexually and I just today learned you can contract from ticks. And a few months earlier I'd had a positive mono/epstein-barr test without symptoms, which it seems can also be triggered by Lyme.
Not long after that began the years of recurring walking pneumonia and chronic UTIs, night fever, joint swelling, random fainting spells/POTS, several false-positive TB titers and hep-b levels, very low LDL, permanently swollen lymph nodes, a very late in life adhd diagnosis that may be legitimate but could also just be due to pure brain fog, a complete intolerance to antibiotics, exercise and heat intolerance, and significantly worsening fatigue despite a healthier lifestyle every year.
But yanno, despite all these peculiarities my bloodwork was always "normal" so obviously nothing was wrong with me and my throbbing joints, aching muscles, and soul crushing fatigue was a mental problem.
Just ordered the Buhner book because I'm done with this and I'm done with doctors.

I was dx with psoriasis age 7 and I' was covered head to toe really until my teens, where I had it bad but only on arms and legs and scalp. In my mid 20's it had settled down and I was mostly clear. However it would flare up badly when stressed. Only ever my skin and scalp.
I'm now 34 and my mother has been diagnosed with cancer and as you can imagine it's been very stressful for me. She's alone, autistic and has several conditions like fibromyalgia and arthritis. I'm looking after her the best I can whilst raising 4 children and working.
My psoriasis has very predictably flared up. But I've a whole host of new inflammatory feeling symptoms. I have read a bit online about PsA and tick some boxes - others I'm unsure of. Maybe I've inherited my mother's fibromyalgia? Who knows. I'd be grateful if anyone could share their experiences of any of these symptoms, and what to expect after I visit my GP on Monday.

• Lines across my nails. Currently my index finger nails on both sides. Two horizontal grooves. This is also starting on my left middle.
  
• what Google diagnoses as geographic tongue. Never had this before ever! I get bald patches on my tongue and these can become worse when eating acidic, salty or spicy food. The burning can be quite severe.
  
• aching muscles in the evening. Usually thighs or calves, regardless of how active or sedentary I've been during the day.
  
• now during the last few weeks my joints (feels like all over!) are clicking and grinding and causing me pain. I've ignored it for a while so unsure on how long I've been like this. But only this last week has it been bad enough and wide spread enough that I know I can't go on this way. Tonight it is my right shoulder, shoulder blade, elbow and wrist. They are crunchy and clicky and ache. I keep feeling like I need to make my joints 'click' to ease the pain, but it doesn't. My neck and ankles are bad tonight too, but nothing compared to my shoulder down to my wrist.
  
• 8 days ago I started with a migraine and was sick (never sick with them), today is my first migraine free day since then. I've never had one last for so very long.
  

I feel like my body is just reacting to my life stress. I'm surprised how strongly. Unsure if it's general inflammation, possible PsA, fibro, or something else. I'm not asking for a diagnosis obviously. Just opinions and maybe some hope. Thank you

Hi so I 19f had covid at the end of February and my lymph node swelled up and was painful, It is still enlarged but not painful it’s in the right side of my neck and around 2cm big or the size of my finger tip, it’s hard and I can move it around. I had my bloods done 2 months ago and all was normal.
Now I have pretty bad health anxiety and I touch and poke it a few times a day, is this causing it to stay enlarged?
I do vape but am on my way to quitting asap. And have just started therapy to hopefully combat my health anxiety.

15 years ago I was treated for Chronic Lyme (I never knew when and that I was bitten but I’m a foreign person so I did not know anything about Lyme prior to that) as I came positive on a test. Did 1 whole year of antibiotics (I was treated by a licensed LLMD) and treatment was brutal and impacted my liver. I stopped treatment and went on with my life. Felt crappy 8 months past treatment but then saw improvement. Was never back 100% but carried on without major problems except mildly raise ALT (liver enzyme) on/off. Fast forward. Got Covid 3 times: March 2020, February 2022, and August 2023, (and even though I did very short antibiotics the first time after pneumonia infection) and I feel my liver took a severe toll after the third Covid. My GI track has been a mess ever since. And then got swollen lymph nodes (so far for 8 months and had extensive testing including biopsy to rule out lymphoma). So I have been following strict liver friendly diet since June 2022 without much improvement symptoms wise. I don’t drink, don’t smoke but prior to June 2022 would have a glass or two on a weekend. Wishes doctors would have told me my liver was hit then. Now. Friday before last week, I got a bite. I thought it to be a bug bite and it hurt and itched. By Sunday I developed the dial. But it was not the target looking rash, but more a red oval which I’m reading is first sign of Lyme. My swollen lymph nodes got worse. And by Monday (I was still within the 72 hour window) called the doctor and he saw the rash and told me it was “unlikely Lyme”. But he prescribed Azythromicyn and I started taking it about 74-76 hours past the bite. But the next day the rash looked worse and I looked it up and it was Lyme. So the next ER doctor changed the antibiotics to Cefuroxime as it is milder on the liver. I’m on day 6 today but two night ago my liver started hurting, and I got some very mild under skins bleeding from scratching myself. Anywhere I read says I need to finish the full 14-day course but I’m not sure my liver would handle it. I’m nervous. Damn if I do, damn if I don’t. As I know first hand chronic Lyme is not to play with. Doxy is impossible for me to handle and this is the best antibiotic I have handle but I can tell my liver is struggling. Doctors would not guide me on what to do. help!

I (24F) had what I believed was my first cluster headache in June/July of 2022. I tracked it and the pain lasted around 46 days. It felt like my left eye was being stabbed. I didn’t have any symptoms other than the painful stabbing sensation and it occurring around the same time multiple times a day. My eye wasn’t red or runny back in 2022. Once it finally went away I haven’t had any symptoms until yesterday. I got this feeling of fullness/throbbing in my left eye that was kinda dull and sticking around all day. I ended up waking up out of my sleep around 2am with such intense throbbing of my left eye and was so close to going to the ER. I was sobbing bc of the pain. About 45 minutes later the pain just went to a dull ache and I was able to fall back asleep. I have had this dull burning/ache in the back and towards the top of my eye all day today, with the ache worsening at points. Also my eye is swollen/tendered in the corner. I also feel like I am a little congested in my left nostril. Does this sound like a cluster headache or should I be going to see an eye doctor? I want to rip my eye out of my head, the pain is unbearable and so uncomfortable.

I (24F) had what I believed was my first cluster headache in June/July of 2022. I tracked it and the pain lasted around 46 days. It felt like my left eye was being stabbed. I didn’t have any symptoms other than the painful stabbing sensation and it occurring around the same time multiple times a day. My eye wasn’t red or runny back in 2022. Once it finally went away I haven’t had any symptoms until yesterday. I got this feeling of fullness/throbbing in my left eye that was kinda dull and sticking around all day. I ended up waking up out of my sleep around 2am with such intense throbbing of my left eye and was so close to going to the ER. I was sobbing bc of the pain. About 45 minutes later the pain just went to a dull ache and I was able to fall back asleep. I have had this dull burning/ache in the back and towards the top of my eye all day today, with the ache worsening at points. Also my eye is swollen/tendered in the corner. I also feel like I am a little congested in my left nostril. Does this sound like a cluster headache or should I be going to see an eye doctor? I want to rip my eye out of my head, the pain is unbearable and so uncomfortable.