I have dealt with pelvic tilt for the majority of my life and its become worst over time and the last 5 years is where it has become unbearable for me to live with on a daily basis. In that time ive done a lot of research onto why i have it, how to fix it etc... I came to the conclusion when i done a thomas test and saw that my leg was raised indicating that my hip flexors were tight from all the sitting i do at my desk which caused my lordosis. However when i try to stretch out my hip flexors, it ends up making my lower back pain even worst a few hours or day after ive stretched. Is this because they are weak, or are the surrounding muscles weak or tight? Im not too sure on why when i stretch im feeling more bad than good. The pain starts when ive been standing for id say 3hrs or more.., the longer i stand the worse it gets, radiating down my legs to my knee pain and ankle and foot pain eventually. The only release i get is when i lay or sit back down again. Any suggestions? Thank you

This is the story of Gavicus XXIX, the leader of the Aurean Dominate at the beginning of my book series. The Aurean Dominate is a declining empire centered around the Planet Aurea and a few pieces of the surrounding worlds. Despite this, the Aurean Dominate still remains one of the four dominant powers in the South Nebula, competing with the Haxamanian Empire over its southern and eastern worlds. The north is dominated by the Ishga Empire and the west is controlled by the mysterious and brand-new Tatiians. Was Gavicus XXIX a good ruler in your opinion? Why or why not?
INFO ABOUT GAVICUS XXIX:
Gavicus XXIX was a Guant born somewhere in Occidens on Aurea 65 years before the end of Book 1. Not much is known about his early life, but it is known that Gavicus XXIX's birth name was Galerius Decimus Tranio and that he spent most of his young adulthood serving in the army during the war against Beyin Epivoulos and his criminal empire. He eventually became a Senator representing an area of rural Occidens, and after a few terms in the Aurean Senate, was chosen to become the Consigliere of Dominus Theodosius IV after the former Consigliere was ousted in the aftermath of the Great Nicopolitan Scandal. His tenure as Consigliere was short, however, as Theodosius IV died of the Blood Bleaching less than a year later. Galerius ascended the throne in Theodosius's place, and took the name Gavicus XXIX upon doing so. He was 47 years old at the time.
Gavicus inherited a bureaucracy that had just been stripped of the vast majority of its talent, as many of the best officials that had served under Theodosius had been implicated in the Great Nicopolitan Scandal and thus were barred from future office. Syagrios Komnenos, the Exarch of Tifinagh under Theodosius who had helped defeat Majorian IX when he tried to use Tifinagh as a base to usurp the throne, was replaced by Marcus Septimius Massgaba. Massgaba was an incompetent wealthy landowner who had bought his way into the Aurean Senate and would go on to spend his tenure as Exarch raising taxes like a maniac, triggering several small revolts, needlessly prolonging the war with the Haxamanians through his impatience and battlefield incompetence, and dying pathetically in the Battle of Tasfahn. Nassenia Montana, the highly capable Magistra Milita that had served under Theodosius IV was replaced by Gaius Caesonius Theodosius (no relation to Theodosius IV), a somewhat competent general who would go on to serve Gavicus well in the wars in Amorica but utterly fail him in the Battle of Tasfahn. For his Consigliere (2nd-in-command/heir in case of his resignation or death), Gavicus chose Tiverios Theodosiopoulos, the most capable of Theodosius IV's sons, who by this time was serving in the army and Senate as a Legate (Senator in command of a legion). As Gavicus was often away on campaign, Tiverios would go on to amass plenty of political clout and power for himself, as he is who Gavicus always left in charge of governance while out of the capital.
Almost immediately after ascending the throne, Gavicus was forced to deal with a crisis. In Lapum, a working-class satellite city of Aurea's largest city Nicopolis, an ethnic Tangolian civilian named Arslan Yi'it was murdered by Aurean legionaries stationed in the city, causing four days of ethnic violence and chaos known as the Lapum Riots. Large portions of the city were burned and looted. Gavicus personally led a legion into the city to quell the uprising, doing so with only 50 civilian deaths and a few hundred injuries, but this did little to quell the underlying ethnic tensions in the city and elsewhere in Aurea. Despite Gavicus's best attempts to invest in Lapum in the years following the violence, much of Lapum's terrified, ethnically Aurean and Centralian upper and middle class fled the city for Nicopolis and elsewhere, resulting in the beginnings of the urban decay the city is known for today.
Additionally and most importantly, Gavicus had inherited the war with the Haxamanian Empire that had cost the Aureans almost all of their territories on the Planet Awal. Only Tifinagh's islands and a small scrap of the mainland Theodosius IV reconquered just before his death remained under Aurean control. Immediately after dealing with the Lapum Riots, Gavicus traveled to Tifinagh, hoping to cement his legitimacy by reconquering the rest of Tifinagh. Due to the Haxamanians' attention largely being focused elsewhere, Gavicus and Massgaba managed to get significantly further than Theodosius IV did, marching east along mainland Tifinagh's northern coast to little resistance. A small Haxamanian force that tried to stop them outside the city of Dymox was easily defeated, and they took Chera, one of the largest cities on Tifinagh's mainland, with no resistance. However, the city had been emptied by the Haxamanians of its food, its civilians, its water, and its supplies. Immediately knowing this was a trap, Gavicus sent for reinforcements, naval resupply, and a fleet from Carthadasta, Tifinagh's capital. Too impatient to wait for supplies, Massgaba disobeyed Gavicus's orders to stay put and led small bands of cavalry to plunder what they could from the local countryside.
While on one of these raids, they clashed with a small band of Imazi cavalry, previously Aurean subjects who'd switched sides to the Haxamanians after the latter captured their land. The Aureans were victorious and managed to capture some, learning from them that the Haxamanians were amassing a massive army nearby, led personally by the Haxamanian Shahanshah (King of Kings) Bahram VII and his Spahbed (top general) Bacha Hilazai. Only a day later, a Haxamanian fleet appeared from the northwest and parked itself in Chera Bay, blocking reinforcements from reaching the city. However, just as according to Gavicus's plan, the Aurean fleet arrived soon after and defeated it, allowing the simultaneously arriving food and supplies to enter the city. Having lost their advantage in a siege, the Haxamanians instead opted to meet the Aureans in open battle, choosing a nearby site at the edge of the Imazi Desert. Gaius Caesonius Theodosius, who had arrived with the reinforcements, along with Gavicus and Massgaba, led the Aureans to a resounding victory, killing or capturing half the Haxamanian force and routing the rest. The victory at the Battle of the Imazi Desert allowed the Aureans to march much further into mainland Tifinagh, recapturing essentially the entire western half of the Exarchate. Meanwhile, Bahram and Bacha retreated to the fortified port of Vasanos to lick their wounds and await reinforcements. Hoping to return to governance, Gavicus left the situation on Awal to Gaius Caesonius Theodosius and Massgaba for the time being and returned to Aurea proper.
In his early reign, Gavicus focused primarily on strengthening trade relations with the Ishgas, but was soon forced to shift his attention elsewhere. 4 years into his reign, the galactic warlord Tate released a magical cataclysm known as the Iteru Genocide on Iteru, a moon of the Planet Awal with close relations to the Aurean Dominate, as it was a former Aurean possession. With Iteru's Pharaoh Nuterhek, a close personal friend of Gavicus, begging him for help, Gavicus provided what rice and wheat the Aurean Dominate could spare to help with the associated famine. While it wasn't enough to save Iteru, the food aid bought many of Iteru's people the time they needed to flee the doomed moon. Despite the Aurean Dominate's extremely isolationist policies for the past few centuries, Gavicus made an agreement with Nuterhek to resettle some Iteru refugees on Aurea, angering many hardliners in the Aurean Senate. The decision was only able to pass the Aurean Senate when Gavicus agreed to cap the total number of migrants at 60,000 and restrict Iteru settlement to the cities of Astras and Olinthaseia. Most consequential of these arrivals was Taftenkhamun, Nuterhek's 10-year-old son and heir to Iteru's throne, whom Gavicus agreed with Nuterhek to adopt as a son. Despite Gavicus's efforts, however, the Iteru Genocide killed or forced into exile all sentient life on Iteru, taking the life of his friend Nuterhek as well, who chose to die with his people rather than flee to Aurea. Gavicus would live with the guilt of not doing more to help Iteru for the rest of his life.
Gavicus would raise Taftenkhamun, much better known by his Aurean name of Taftus, as the son he never had. He allowed Taftus to live with him in the Palace of the Domini, continued his education, and did his best to balance spending time with him and showing him love and affection with the duties of being the Aurean Dominus. Despite Gavicus trying to push Taftus into going into politics like he did, Taftus was far more interested in the military, and enlisted in the Aurean legions at 17, as soon as he became of age.
After a year of scheming to turn the tide of the war, Bahram sent Bacha undercover to the rebellious Aurean Province of Tangolia, tasked with fomenting a rebellion so they could use the province as a springboard to attack Aurea proper. Many Tangolians, particularly the Otrar and Gazan Tangolians, both felt mistreatment under Aurean rule and had more in common culturally with the Haxamanians than the Aureans, and many flocked to join the revolt, which quickly took control of the north and center of the province. Qajeer, the Tangolian Khan loyal to the Aureans, fought off several attempts by the rebels to capture Tengribalik, the Tangolian Capital. However, once the Haxamanians arrived, led by Bacha Hilazai, their combined strength was too much for Qajeer to deal with and he was forced to abandon the city to the rebels and Haxamanians, fleeing to Tangolia's eastern seaboard, an area much more loyal to the Aureans. With Gaius Caesonius Theodosius tied down in Tifinagh and not trusting Massgaba to defend the Exarchate on his own, Gavicus was forced to rely on what was left of Qajeer's force, border guard units, and regional commanders to stop the ensuing Haxamanian-Tangolian invasion of Argentolia, the Aurean heartland. The border guard units proved to be little more than a speed bump for the combined Haxamanian-Tangolian force, which easily broke through the border wall and crossed the Hsia River, invading Argentolia. As most of eastern Argentolia's regional commanders with any actual talent had been implicated in the Great Nicopolitan Scandal under Gavicus's predecessor and thus were no longer in command, almost all of them were fairly new recruits with little experience leading troops, resulting in disaster after disaster. Daion was the first city to fall to the Haxamanian-Tangolian force, which then followed that up by defeating an Aurean field army near Cannoria. Within three months, both Cannoria and Ferum, the latter being one of the largest and most important cities in the Aurean Dominate, would be in enemy hands. Over the following six months, poorly led field army after poorly led field army would fall to the invaders, with the major cities of Eresus, Cercapese, Ager Capulum, and Sacrini all falling within the next year. For the first time since the Aurean Dominate's founding, the capital of Astras was within striking distance.
Under immense pressure from the Aurean Senate and general public, Gavicus finally recalled Gaius Caesonius Theodosius from Tifinagh after Sacrini fell, as the enemy was nearing Astras, thought for millennia to be untouchable. By the time Gaius Caesonius Theodosius had arrived, the Haxamanian-Tangolian force had seized Artegion, on the doorstep of Astras, and with it, a fleet. With the combined arms of their massive land force and this fleet, the Haxamanian-Tangolian force laid siege to Astras, with Gaius Caesonius Theodosius and Gavicus leading the defense of the city. The city's massive, three-layered walls, combined with its easily defensible location on the sea with only a few land entrances, allowed the Aureans to repel the invaders, marking a turning point in the war. While the Haxamanians under Bacha Hilazai simply sailed back to Awal, the Tangolians, with no such option and trapped thousands of miles deep in Aurean territory, would be dealt with piecemeal over the next three years. Around the same time, Qajeer had managed to reverse his fortunes in Tangolia and recapture Tengribalik and much of the province's center.
By year 6 of Gavicus's reign, the situation with the Tangolians was under enough control for Gavicus to return his military attention to Awal. While Gaius Caesonius Theodosius and Gavicus had been busy fighting off Bacha Hilazai and the Tangolians, Massgaba had lost some ground to Bahram VII in Tifinagh, having been pushed back to the city of Thubiscurum. Taking advantage of low Haxamanian morale after the failed Siege of Astras, the Aureans were able to push the Haxamanians out of Tifinagh entirely when Gavicus and Gaius Caesonius Theodosius returned, restoring the Aurean Exarchate of Tifinagh to full Aurean control for the first time in decades. Other lost Aurean Exarchates in the area - Kilikia, Meroe, Adua, and the Imazi Tribal Lands - were restored to Aurean hands over the next six years, putting the Haxamanians decisively on the back foot. During this time, Bacha Hilazai was killed at the Battle of Taoudenni, greatly weakening the Haxamanians and lowering their morale.
Relations with the Kingdom of Arturia were fraught, with conflict erupting 7 years into Gavicus's reign over the Aurean Exarchate of Amorica, an isolated Aurean territory on the Planet Arturia that the Kingdom of Arturia continued to claim. Paradoxically, these tensions began when Arturia's king, King Arturius, traveled to Aurea to meet with Gavicus to negotiate an end to their millennia-long conflict. While Gavicus was personally in favor of a deal, King Arturius refused to relinquish his claim on Amorica, leading to the Aurean Senate rejecting the deal and forcing Gavicus to continue the conflict. Additionally angering the Aurean Senate, Gavicus made the mistake of insisting that he meet with Arturius in Astras rather than on Arturia. Despite Gavicus's attempt to pitch it as a beginning of the end of Aurea's centuries of isolationism that even many Aureans were starting to regard as self destructive, this was seen as a bridge too far for most. During the failed negotiations, Gavicus briefly met Pompeia, a young disciple of King Arturius who would become of note much later. In order to make up his lost standing in the Aurean Senate, Gavicus was forced to escalate the situation in Arturia immediately after the negotiations broke down, distracting King Arturius with a vacation in Astras while he ordered a massive invasion force to land in Amorica and seize as much Arturian land as possible.
Exceeding even Gavicus's expectations, this force managed to break through the Arturian Alps and put Caerbannog, the Kingdom of Arturia's capital, under siege. Upon his return, however, Arturius managed to break the siege despite being taken completely by surprise, and defeated the Aureans in several battles, pushing them all the way back into Amorica. Eventually, Arturius, livid at Gavicus's betrayal, managed to invade into Amorica itself and fought the Aureans, led personally by Gavicus as he had traveled there by this point, to a stalemate at the Battle of Caerwent. While Gavicus still had enough resources to continue prosecuting the war, he felt that this particular episode proved there was no reason to continue the constant skirmishes with Arturia, and accepted an offer to negotiate peace terms with Arturius again, this time in Amorica.
The ensuing peace deal returned Aurea's and Arturia's borders to status quo antebellum, although Arturius was not happy about Aurea retaining Amorica. However, Aurea had to bite the bullet and recognize the Kingdom of Arturia's independence and normalize relations, as all of Aurea's previous Domini had refused to do this despite it having been fait accompli for millennia at this point. Aurea had previously seen the entire Kingdom of Arturia as little more than a rogue province that had somehow managed to slip from its control long ago. Aurea paid Arturia a hefty war indemnity, but this was paltry compared to the money that new trade relations between Arturia and Aurea brought in for both nations. Although recognizing Arturia's independence was not popular on Aurea at first, Gavicus was able to sell it based on the fact that he had retained Amorica, held the peace negotiations off-planet this time, and most importantly because of all the money that new trade relations with Arturia brought in, as Arturia sat along a key trade route linking Aurea more closely with the wealthy and technologically advanced Ishgas far beyond. This allowed Gavicus to hold lavish games, as well as expand Aurea's existing food dole for the poor to include protoceratops and psittacosaurus meat in addition to wheat, olive oil, rice, pork, and chicken. His popularity spiked, and in the tenth year of his reign, he would go on to sail to reelection against Qajeer Khan, winning 55% of the vote nationwide.
In the ninth year of Gavicus's reign, the last holdouts of the Tangolian revolt had been put down by Qajeer. Qajeer had his uncle Jamukha, who had led the revolt, strangled for doing so. However, Qajeer had his own reasons for helping crush the revolt instead of participating in it himself. While he secretly loathed the Aureans and the way they treated his people, Qajeer instead chose to bide his time, gaining the Aureans' trust and building a robust local power base while he waited for his own opening to revolt. For the entire rest of his life, Gavicus would be none the wiser. Qajeer would eventually revolt under Gavicus's successor, resulting in a multi-year civil war that would leave the already exhausted Aurean Dominate open to the machinations of Tate soon after.
Gavicus tried his best to manage the Blood Bleaching pandemic that circulated on Aurea during the first few years of his reign, but little could be done to spare Aurea from the destruction of that disease, and like most of the rest of the galaxy, Aurea lost a substantial chunk of its population. Thanks largely to Gavicus's enforcement of strict social distancing throughout its duration, however, the Blood Bleaching killed far less of the population on Aurea than it did on the hardest-hit worlds of Arturia and Iteru, each of which lost half or more of their pre-pandemic populations. In total, it is estimated around 10-15% of the Aurean Dominate's pre-pandemic population was killed by the Blood Bleaching, compared to around 50% on Arturia and a whopping 70% on Iteru. Even Aurea's relatively small loss was not without its consequences, however, as this caused a decline in tax revenue for years and a noticeable strain on the military's recruitment pool.
In the first four years after his reelection, Gaius Caesonius Theodosius managed to reconquer all of the lost Exarchates on Awal the Haxamanians had taken from the Aureans during Theodosius IV's reign. Nova Aurea, Caria, and finally Carmania were all finally returned to the Aurean Dominate after decades of Haxamanian occupation, and Gavicus's popularity soared as a result.
Despite having recognized Arturia's independence earlier, 14 years into Gavicus's reign, tensions flared up with Arturia again Amorica again. An Arturian garrison had left a border fort in the Arturian Alps briefly undefended, and a small Aurean force seized it without orders, prompting a small-scale war between Aurea and Arturia. This conflict was over in about two months, with the Kingdom of Arturia suing for peace after the Aureans seized a few more border forts and badly defeated an Arturian field army at the Battle of Allt-Gollau. At the negotiating table, Gavicus agreed to return the border between the Aurean Exarchate of Amorica and the Kingdom of Arturia to status quo antebellum in exchange for the freeing of 500 Aurean hostages Arturia took during the fighting and the Aureans who seized the initial border fort without orders were put on trial. Most notable about this conflict was the brilliance of an Aurean cavalry commander named Gorgo Gualtera at the Battle of Allt-Gollau, resulting in her catching Gavicus's eye. Gavicus promoted her to Exarch of Amorica, giving her full military and civilian control of the territory. Unbeknownst to Gavicus or anyone else, however, Gorgo was both the daughter of the dead Aurean crimelord Beyin Epivoulos (the crimelord whose forces Gavicus had fought in his youth), as well as a deep cover agent for Tate (the architect of the Iteru Genocide and many other atrocities across the galaxy).
The next year, the Haxamanian Empire was engulfed in a civil war, and Gavicus saw the perfect opportunity to strike at the Haxamanian Capital while the area was engulfed in turmoil, finally ending the decades-long war or maybe even conquering the Haxamanians completely in the process. However, things did not at all go according to plan, and all the armies he brought with him got destroyed by the forces of Rukhsana I Shahanzai, a disaffected member of the Haxamanian royal family who had escaped from prison, gotten an army together, annihilated the Aureans in the disastrous Battle of Tasfahn, and took the Haxamanian throne for herself. Several Aurean generals and other military leaders, including Massgaba, were killed, and Gavicus barely escaped the battle with his life. The Aureans had no forces left on Awal after this to protect their holdings there. On the other hand, Taftus, who was also present during the campaign, became a national hero when he used his tactical prowess to save the troops under his command from annihilation by a Haxamanian ambush deep in the mountains.
In the aftermath, Gavicus was forced to enter into peace negotiations. At first, Rukhsana demanded the Aureans cede all their lands on Awal to the Haxamanians, which Gavicus flatly refused (The Exarchate of Tifinagh on Awal was one of Aurea's most valuable regions and ceding it to the Haxamanians would have meant an end to the grain dole and mass starvation across Aurea). Eventually, a deal was reached in which the Aureans would cede all their lands on Awal except the Exarchate of Tifinagh to the Haxamanians, and the Aureans would have to pay a huge war indemnity to the Haxamanians as well. The Aurean Exarchates of Nova Aurea, Kilikia, Meroe, Adua, the Imazi Tribal Lands, Carmania, and Caria were all permanently handed over to the Haxamanians, essentially rendering all of Gavicus's reconquests except those in Tifinagh moot. This was formalized in the humiliating Treaty of Mingora, which Gavicus was forced to sign.
Gavicus's popularity took a nosedive in the aftermath of this event, and he dedicated the rest of his reign to domestic policy, commissioning public works projects, throwing lavish games, and beginning by far his most important legacy: he decided that to keep up with the rest of the galaxy, Aurea needed to end its isolationism and industrialize along the Ishga model. He decided that Aurea's largest city, Nicopolis, would be a good place to test industrialization, and he hired Ishga scientists, architects, engineers, and developers to transform Nicopolis into a modern city. While Gavicus's popularity would never recover to the heights it was at after his victory over the Arturians, this was enough to keep him from being assassinated (at least for a while).
For the rest of Gavicus's life, Taftus would alternate between his extremely promising military career and a middling-to-poor one as an elected politician, helping Gavicus with some of his later projects such as industrialization but turning out to be too scandal-ridden and debauched to be the protege Gavicus wanted. For all his military talent, Taftus had a reputation for extreme abrasiveness and anger issues, and it seemed every other week there was another rumor going around about Taftus having massive orgies involving female politicians and/or prostitutes. While Gavicus would never fully disown Taftus, he had largely abandoned him as a protege by the end of his reign, assigning him military command of the backwater province of Tiorangi where he didn't have to pay much attention to him. The year before Gavicus died, he made Gorgo Gualtera his Magister Equitum, supreme commander of all cavalry forces in the Aurean Dominate after the previous officeholder died suddenly of a stroke. While Gavicus had no way of knowing this at the time, this decision would eventually result in both his own death and Aurea being pulled into the galaxy's broader confrontation with Tate years later that would result in the bloodiest war in galactic history.
Towards the end of his life, Gavicus befriended Pompeia, a young woman of mixed Aurean and Tangolian heritage who had spent much of her life on the Planet Arturia before returning to Aurea by accident. She rose to superstardom as a gladiator, having trained in magic under King Arturius, utilizing magic in combat in ways that hadn't been seen in millennia. He was both shocked and intrigued by Pomepeia's friendship and past brief romantic involvement with Rukhsana I Shahanzai of the Haxamanian Empire. Gavicus saw great potential in Pompeia and reinstated her Aurean citizenship, even allowing her to serve as his Consigliere after Tiverios was indicted on corruption charges. However, there was some tension between the two, as Pompeia was from Lapum, had witnessed the Lapum Riots as a child, and was critical of Gavicus's failure to address the longstanding discrimination against Tangolians that led to them. Less than a year later, Gavicus was assassinated under mysterious circumstances (it would later be discovered that Gorgo Gualtera arranged his murder and covered it up so well that no one even suspected her until she would eventually reveal her true intentions years later), and Pompeia ascended the throne as the first female Dominus (Domina) in history. Gavicus's body was cremated after his death and his urn was placed in the Mausoleum of the Domini in Astras. Decades of constant conflict with the Haxamanians, both under Gavicus and his predecessor Theodosius IV, as well as civil conflict, multiple Tangolian revolts, the Hoc Nostrum conflict, and the Amorican Wars with Arturia would leave Pompeia with an exhausted Aurean Dominate, bereft of manpower, resources, money, and talent that would be completely unprepared to deal with Tate and his machinations only a few years after Gavicus's death.

Did anyone have arm pain with an ectopic? I know shoulder pain is a symptom but what about arm pain, that radiates between my fingers to wrist to elbow to upper arm, and generally it's all pretty dull.

This has all been a blur, so apologies in advance! On 4/16, I woke up at 4am in excruciating pain - I felt like I was having a heart attack and it hurt to breathe. I started sweating profusely and couldn't stop throwing up. The pain was mainly in the upper center of my chest but there was a stabbing sensation under my right rib. About 45 mins in, I decided to call 911. At the hospital, my BP was very low and the pain wouldn't quit. After some fluids, morphine, and a clear ultrasound, I was sent home after a doctor told me there was a nasty stomach virus going around. I wake up the next morning and I'm still in a lot of pain so I go to a different hospital. I get admitted for a few days but go home after normal bloodwork, another clear ultrasound & CT scan. The following week I have another "attack" and go back to the same hospital I was admitted to. I'm admitted again. Normal bloodwork, HIDA, and endoscopy (I just received results after 2 weeks). No stones, normal functioning from HIDA, bile duct only slightly dilated (7mm), & possible thickening of GB wall. I got a lot of mixed information along the way depending on who I was speaking with, but two GI specialists that were consulted both said I most likely needed my gallbladder removed. Nothing ever screamed gallbladder removal and I was kind of of fed up with it all, especially when I found out they only had a trauma surgeon and they wouldn't perform a surgery anyway, so I went home. I saw a general surgeon and he basically told me my symptoms line up with GB issues, but reiterated tests and scans didn't scream surgery. However, he said that happens sometimes and it was up to me, and he would perform the surgery if I wanted to proceed. I told him I would let him know. Since then, I've been having weird sensations all over my abdomen. Upper abdomen is tender, I get random stabbing pain under my right rib, my back is killing me (I can't sit upright for long periods of time), middle/lower left abdomen hurts (gas pain?), and it feels like my insides are folding over on themselves. I'm having a hard time committing to GB removal surgery in case it's not my GB, but would love to hear anyone's thoughts in case you've experienced something similar, or if there might be other conditions to look into. I'm feeling pretty lost and exhausted after dealing with this for over a month. Thanks!

I was diagnosed just recently in April, with TNBC. I have 2 lumps in my left breast and some lymph node involvement (1?) My mother had breast cancer TNBC, and her paternal brother had pancreatic. I start my chemotherapy this Thursday.
At first as you all know, it was terrifying not knowing the severity of it. I was convinced it spread everywhere. I had pains in my back and neck, every ache and pain came with that doomed feeling. The doctor ordered a CT scan of my abdomen, pelvis, my chest, and a brain MRI. Luckily, those scans came back clear- no metastasis.
With that I got some relief, most of pain disappeared I’m sure from the stress and anxiety being relieved. Although some pain left, I still have pain in my ribs on the same side as my breast tumor. it radiates to my front and to my back. The pain comes and goes.
I mentioned this to my Oncologist during a physical examination, he felt the area but did not mention anything from there.
I am starting to feel like I went full circle. I’m back where I was. Every ache and pain feels like it’s spread throughout all my bones. My chest, my spine, and my ribs. I’m really really scared.
I did not receive a bone scan or PET, this worries me. I want to request one, but I’m am terrified of the results. “Is this all just anxiety?” I question over and over. “Will they not go through with chemo if they find something positive on the bone scan?” I know I have to be my own advocate but I need support to know it’s not just anxiety- or vise versa.
Any guidance, suggestion, and similar stories will help me. I know most will say “check to make sure” but I just need help from those who have experienced this. Thank you.

My SO (31M) has been through it for most of our relationship. He’s had almost all physical jobs in his life — bar backing and hauling kegs of beer upstairs, goodwill handling furniture & etc, to the grocery store we work at where we met where we do daily breakdowns of dozens of pallets with boxes up to 50lb and other tasks that cannot be truly done in an ergonomic way.
His daily low back pain is from a 7-9/10. He’s got a bulging lumbar disc and mild arthritis. We tried an epidural a few weeks back that did nothing.
We’re trying physical therapy and he’s considering a new job but he’s having numbness from what is also probably a pinched nerve in his neck.
I feel so utterly distraught sometimes. I’m not a doctor and every step of trying to get this addressed has been hell with doctors who don’t believe him because he’s too young and just — we just got an $11,000 bill for the epidural a $2,500 bill for the anesthesia despite insurance. (We’re waiting on that. Hoping it was just submitted incorrectly.)
Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe. I feel so badly he can’t live the life he wants. I wish I could do more than rub his feet on a rough day. It’s hard not to cry right now even writing this.
People who love people in chronic pain — How do you manage seeing the people you love so much in so much pain with no break in it?
People in chronic pain, what helps you the most from your loved ones? What is aggravating?
I don’t want to be weepy all over him. He tells me sometimes that he’s sorry that he shared with me because it visibly upsets me to know how much he’s suffering. I’m not trying to add to the weight or feel like a burden.
I just — wish there was something I could do so so SO much to make it better.

Preface to say, I am not a mechanic. I can usually figure out how to replace things with the help of youtube if they arent too complex, but some of my terms may be off, forgive me please.
2 Years ago I replaced the radiator fan in my wife's Edge with an aftermarket Dorman fan assembly, and other than the connection coming lose once, it has been fine until this week when her car began overheating now that its getting into the 90 degree range in the afternoons. I go to look at it today and notice the coolant is quite low, add about a half gallon and hope thats all it was. crank it up and let it idle for about 25 minutes and its still overheating. The radiator fans arent coming on.
I check the connections and they seems fine, still nothing, temp continues to rise with the fans still not running. I shut the car off, pull the fuse to see if there are any obvious signs of a blown fuse, there are not, so I pop it back in (dont have a multimeter at home) and as soon as I fire it back up, the fans run for about a minute, then shut off. Thats the only time they have run during this process. After they shut off, I continue to let the car idle and it overheats again, fans wont turn back on.
I think its safe to assume since they did run for a minute, its not a fuse issue. Im thinking I'm going to need to put a new radiator fan assembly in again. Anybody else have any other thoughts or ideas?
Edit to add as possibly related. AC has always run warm in the Edge, and it seems like the AC compressor only runs for a few seconds at a time. I was checking the refrigerant earlier today while waiting on the car to heat up and it would show "filled" on the gauge for a few seconds, then the compressor who shut off and the needle would bounce to overfilled, then a few seconds later it would go back. Not sure if related or not, but another thread i found mentioned something about an AC Pressure switch, so i wanted to include it.

I'm a float pool nurse, have been for almost a year now. I was a float pool CNA for 3 years so it just made sense to stay with my same manager (who I absolutely love) and I was already familiar with all the floors. Plus, the making my own schedule and extra hourly incentive (Plus I'm overnight, so as a new grad making that, was hard to pass up).
It was great during orientation! Loved it. My first week off orientation they made the decision that float at this specific hospital would start floating also to their sister hospital, it's over an hour away from my house and an awful hospital. The ratios are 1 to 7-8, I wish I was joking, of patients ranging from Medsurg level of care to IMC. My manager assured us we would only be going there once a blue moon because they were so well staffed.... should have known better. I've been sent there every shift for the last 12 weeks.
I'm feeling so burnt out and defeated. I love the job, I absolutely love when I'm at my "home" hospital, but it's looking like that's a thing of the past since I guess there has been a staffing shift and now my "home" hospital is staffed and the other bad hospital had 50% travelers who they didn't extend for whatever reason. I regularly have 7 patients that are high acuity, I have rapids back to back all the time, I can't give proper care, I constantly get the WORST assignment because I'm a float nurse, I work nights so the support is slim.
Now last shift I guess the floor I was on audited my charting and saw I didn't do all my hourly rounds and forgot to do one pain assessment. I understand this charting is important and vital, but with 7 patients, no aid, 3 CBIs, 1PD, all ACHS, 4 with extreme agitation and sundowning... yes I did forget to do a few hourlys, and now I'm beating myself up. My manager didn't seem happy in the email she sent me, saying I should be an "expert" on charting by now. I just am feeling super low right now. And now I'm also terrified, like am I going to get in a lot of trouble for this, did I do something wrong to warrant the audit (I don't think so, I've never had any other complaints or variances this is the first discussion I've ever had). I'm like should I reach out to that manager for that floor and apologize? Idk.
Any other float pool nurses on here? How do you survive? I love the float pool overall when I'm at my home base. Yes I've talked to management. I even tried days out to see if I liked it better.
I signed a 2 year contract to agree they would pay 40k of my student loans, if I leave before the 2 years I have to pay it back so I'm definitely sticking it out until August 2025. But man it's hard and I'm just feeling super low. I dread work every day because I know I'm gonna go to that hospital over an hour away and get the absolute worst assignment.
Really just venting, so thank you for your time. But if anyone has any words of encouragement I greatly appreciate it.

My normal posts are 2-5 paragraphs. This is long because it's a starter.
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The sloping ground around the Kiaurk family mesa had been sculpted into shelves or terraces, and it was on one of those upper terraces that Kiaurk Nshurr now lounged beneath a pergola anchored to the striated stone face behind her. The mesa rose at her back: an enormous, looming, almost sheer outcrop that her family's dwellings had been carved into the face of. Wide, shallow steps cut into the artificial (but entirely convincing) sandstone wound their way up between landings and porticos leading inward, between tiny balconies shaded by bright solid-colored canopies, between rooms with flat walls and rounded corners that came jutting out to shadow the steps below. Rriigkhans rarely used glass as window barriers; smooth-edged holes had been cut through the rock in varying shapes and sizes. It could be difficult to tell which apertures were windows and which were entryways. A physical barrier that kept out the elements was obsolete in all but the crudest dwellings, though some of these larger holes were curtained with braided string or strips of cloth that served a purely decorative purpose.
From her high vantage point Nshurr could see the shelves stretching out below her as the base of the mesa leveled out to flattish terrain that was a wonderland of vegetation in muted rainbow colors: mustard yellows, clay reds, earthy browns and the occasional dash of sage or dusty blue. This scrubland lay like a blanket around everything below that was not part of the village between the mesas. Down there, adobe compounds never taller than two or three storeys seemed so squat compared to the mesas that Nshurr could see towering in the distance, many of those family mesas only a few hours walk from her own if she traveled by foot. The village sprawled, with tile parkways winding in serpentine fashion between the various buildings, courtyards, parks, and ponds. There were no property lines, no clear division of the land into neat little plots owned by the individuals who lived and worked in these places. It all seemed to be part of a whole, with a single unifying aesthetic. The village housed those rriigkhans of the lower castes, the kharratah and chelhautah, and the humans which were a caste all their own, haukagh-ar, except for a small number who lived with their employers in the caverns of the mesas or up on the plateau.
This planet, Sgarrl, terraformed over three hundred years ago, was home to more humans than any other Ssaarian world – aside from Earth, of course, discovered eighty years ago. The fact that humans shared so much in common with rriigkhans made them the perfect species to incorporate into the rriigkhan caste structure. They breathed the same mix of gases and required similar gravities, and their nimble little fingers were very useful for all sorts of work.
Still, despite the weird pidgin humans had made of her language and their English, she liked the little creatures. She had come to live with her Grandmother on Sgarrl only a month ago, and had never encountered them before. The males only stood as tall as her collar. The females were shorter still, much like the males of her own species.
To human eyes Nshurr was , with a muscular swimmer's body and the broad muzzle of a big cat, with watchful, forward-facing predator's eyes that seemed unexpectedly expressive, because rriikghans had almost as many muscles around their eyes as humans did around their mouths to convey the nuances of emotion. Despite being larger than even many Earth men, she was considered sleek by rriigkhan standards. She made up for that with her broader crest.
The rriigkhan crest was something like the crest of Utahceratops – a keratinized plate growing up out of the skull, except divided into three lobes instead of two, with scalloped edges along the outer rim. Unlike depictions of Utahceratops, the rriigkhan crest was not covered by skin. At least, not on the top. Thick ropy veins squiggled under velvet fur on the underside, closer to the neck. (A thick, arching neck muscular enough to support the weight of that crest meant that Rriigkhans walked with a stoop that made them seem hunchbacked, to humans.) The surface of the plate on top was often rough, even bumpy or corrugated like deer antlers in some areas, smooth in others. Every female crest had four tines jutting from the front – a pair several inches above the eyes, and another pair further up.
Nshurr's crest was wider than average, her upper tines spaced further apart, and combined with a compact face this made her look top-heavy. (A human might say that she was more snow leopard than lion.) Most female crests did not interfere with the movement of the ears – highly mobile, highly expressive paddle shaped things – but the edges of Nshurr's crest did jut out enough to almost shield them.
That her crest was weighty, that it was inconvenient, that she was often aware of it – this was Nshurr's pride. Her long tail curled happily when she caught males looking at it. Humans seemed to be intimidated by it sometimes, as if she might decide to stab them with her “horns.” She considered herself a confident person; not a braggart, but self-assured, and to carry her jhekaah so visibly pleased her to no end.
Her fur was an almost peachy off-white, but a mask of pale peach shaded each seafoam green eye. The mask blended into the white further up her forehead until fur gave way to bone-tan crest, and was split between her eyes by the white of her nose. Oblong spots in that same peachy color, each blending from dark to light, streaked down her sides.
These weren't the natural colors of her distant ancestors. It was unheard of to see a rriigkhan who was not gene-modified in some way, even if those modded genes had been part of rriigkhan life for so long that no one thought of them as mods any longer. She also thought nothing of the subtitles her augmented reality implant displayed whenever a human spoke, AI translated to help her decipher the pidgin. AR was simply a part of her, had been since she was a kit.
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OOC Information:
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For this particular prompt I imagine you'd play a human, probably a new arrival to Sgarrl but maybe someone who was born there. Even though I've set up a situation where my character would have a lot of power and yours very little, I want to clarify that I'm only looking for a mutually loving, slow burn romance.
My “type” that I'd like you to play would be an average man in the 40-60 age range, with realistic personality flaws.
I prefer partners who like to reply more than once a day. 2-3 replies per day would be ideal, but I understand life gets in the way. I usually write 2-5 paragraphs, or 150-450 words per post. This starter is much longer than my typical post length, but my lengths really vary a lot. If I'm introducing a new character or scene, my post might be 1,000 words, or it could be 100 words if our characters are in the middle of a conversation.
Please send a writing sample if you have none in your post history. No need to custom write anything for me, old samples are fine.

Warning: abuse
At 19F in the middle of active alcoholism 3 years after my mom went to jail for murder for hire, I was a SW (looking?) for a SD? - while out at a bar I got approached by a 43M that I found attractive and very charismatic. Thinking we’d end up having “fun”, I returned the honest sentiment of attraction. We stayed together 2.5 years after that. He was a Chemist who laughed and made light of everything, his alcoholism and drug addiction became apparent from the beginning, but not to the extent that it got to/really was.
Like all relationships, things started out fun, a very Glee movie summer-like love, very free-ing. He was a Doctor of chemistry and worked in the oil field prior to my meeting him, because of his living situation and luxury cars he seemed like he was doing well. He never was any type of SD. The night I met him, we made eye contact and never looked away. Our chemistry, pun intended- was like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
I’m the youngest, not the smartest nor prettiest. I quit my jobs because I simply didn’t want to work sometimes, I made a lot of mistakes and I’ve been in the receiving end of family based bullying and school bullying, SA, R@p€, abandonment and trust issues, I’m bipolar, I practice/d SH, depression, GAD… things of the human condition that make it feel like I’m faulty.
This man was the first person that ever sat with me and listened to me vent to the extent that I did the first tight we spent together. We rarely had sex, but we shared breaths as we slept, (he inhales my breath as I exhale his breath, vise-versa and so on and so forth) to keep it brief and give example. He’s the most intimate partner I’ve ever experienced.
I notice others micro expressions and cater to their benefit if it seems they are troubled or asking for help.
I’m having so much trouble these days accepting the fact that I’m never going to meet him again. Specifically because he was so attentive and catering to my needs. He knew immediately when I was masking. I’m so confused and perplexed about the feeling of not having anyone in my life that has that interest in me. I felt so understood. That’s been my first and last experience with feeling understood like that.
He drank from morning to night nonstop. Together we became aware of what alcoholism was. Brown urine, blood, pain… regret that then led to arguments, accidents, threats, drugs, danger, fear turned to bonding, helping each other, trying to get better, failing. Trying again. Do it all over again. Fail. Again and again.
We managed to get sober a few days. His parents loved me. I understood and loved him. He hadn’t been sober for that long and trying for a long time. He was doing better, that’s what his mom would say.
Every relapse got harder, more dangerous medically and physically as well as economically.
Sleep deprivation was torture I hadn’t experienced before. I would be awoken with yelling because of delirium, anger and he would degrade me so badly. Use that bond we had against me, my own experiences turned against me he’d repeat the insults I shared with him to me. Yell those at me. Then love bomb. Then threaten me and my family with guns. I lived in fear when he blacked out. Felt lonely because with all of the yelling, smashing things around, being stared at by neighbors crying, being called an idiot dumbass in front of people and them witnessing me at a low point and then, agreeing with him? No neighbor knocked after crying and yelling to see if anyone was ok or dying. Public shame feels so. Fucking. Lonely. Isolation doesn’t help.
He stopped functioning. His body started giving out. I loved him. Took care of him cleaned his wounds after falls, his body after incontinence. He literally shed blood, shit and tears, regret and asked for forgiveness when I cared for him in his sober state.
In return, I’d receive non stop verbal abuse if I didn’t stop and do what he wanted me to at the time he wanted me to and how he wanted me to. If I didn’t give him my attention he’d end up getting it by threatening my family. And he would! Fight my brother and go after him with loaded guns. So there I would go do what he said. Forced to ride in a vehicle, with him locking the doors, blasting Phil Collins yelling at me. Driving erratically, dangerously. And I’d be so fucking scared of crashing. Just imagining the police report, “f19 dead alongside 43m after drunk reckless driving”. He’d speed in traffic so I couldn’t really jump out the car. I’d end up just drinking to numb the fear.
I had enough and attempted to sleepies forever by taking a sweet deadly cocktail of whatever handful of pills I could get my hands on. We had plastic gallon moving boxes filled with narcotics- he was a pharmacist too. I told him I was going to KMS he said go ahead, so I attempted and I filmed it.
From the setting up the phone in that closet, the one I color coordinated for him, his button-ups and suits in those dry-cleaning bags that hadn’t been opened since leaving the laundry shop… I watched my su!c!d€ afterwards. Out of morbid curiosity. “What a dumbass!” was what he said when he found me. I won’t go into detail of the full video but chest compressions hurt a lot, 10/10 would not recommend. And EMS left the AED stickers on my chest 🤷🏽‍♀️
After that 24hr watch, an awkward taxi drive to a crisis clinic that was understaffed and left me in a room by myself for two hours and walking in public with those see-through paper hospital clothes. Embarrassment is a light expression. When I was taken home, I didn’t have keys, or phone, or anything. Just my discharge papers and my cut vomit stained pajamas in a biohazard bag. - I lived in a gated neighborhood with key-fob-entry-only. I was fucked and waited what seemed like 4 hours for anyone to help me but no one showed up until HE did WITH MY BROTHER. The one who was threatened with a gun, that brother.
JFC the amount of insults, “what a fucking dumbass, what were you thinking? You’re a fucking idiot!” To summarize in the friendliest way. I was dressed in a see through hospital gown, I went straight to the shower, didn’t have the energy to get dressed when they kept just YELLING at me. INSULTING me- I had enough and wanted to defend myself. That’s when my brother pulled out his phone and started filming me pleading with them to let me sleep, calling me crazy, threatening to “show the family how fucking crazy you are!” - I threw my phone. Broke the microwave door. More insults, while still filming me, I was ordered to, “clean it up” - and at that moment. Completely detached, I did.
I put my brother on the soon-est bus to Mexico and sent him to rehab after 2 hell filled weeks of him living with us because he was so fucked in alcoholism he was homeless. To this day I don’t know how I did that.
I managed to leave my ex. 2 weeks later I receive calls from worried friends. Ryan was missing.
After investigating, (calls to police,hospitals, checking out the “usual” spots) - turns out he went to a Circle K looking for Peroni after the liquor store wouldn’t sell to him, tripped on the steps, hit his head on the pavement, STILL MANAGED TO PURCHASE ALCOHOL, left, got into a fight, and somehow miraculously ended up in his apartment where he tried to shower, fell face forward towards the water tap, (which left a softball sized bruise on his right eye and fractured his nose) he then tried to walk towards the kitchen? Passed out in the living room leaving blood all over the walls, puddles on the ground and the biggest blood clot stain on the floor ( we had to get crime scene cleaners). He apparently had a fit where he trashed the apartment by throwing my things, my plants, bottles of crown… anything. Everything was trashed when I found him in the apartment. I counted at LEAST 20 bottles of crown. He was so fucked up we thought he had been assaulted.
COVID hit and hospitals were in full lockdown. As an “essential worker” I could travel to the hospital to see him, and because someone somewhere said I was his wife/fiancée I was the ONLY one allowed to see him.
I snuck behind friends and family’s backs checking in on him at the hospital. Singing The Carpenters songs, wearing his favorite perfumes, reading Bill’s Story (IYKYK), playing Phil Collins. The whole 9 yards.
The last time I saw him, he was in Physical therapy/Rehab. He ended up moving back to his parents in California. Then February the next year, on Valentine’s Day - his mom let me know he passed.
She grieved very much attached to me. It was one of the saddest things I ever had to help someone through - alongside helping her son go through alcoholism.
I became a CNA as a tribute to helping him during those hard sober times where his body gave out. Helping others like that, bathing them, diaper changing, g-tube cleaning, hygiene essentials…
The classic grief started with what-if’s. Etc. it’s been hard lately because all my family is against him and his family resents me for being the only one with access to his medical records during COVID. I’m in a relationship now and our therapist told me to “put a break on it”. Recently. My mental illnesses keep getting worse and I feel like no other has taken such interest in me as much as Ryan did. He was so observant. So in-sync with me. And he was so shitty to me. He’s like the sweetest tasting radioactive flower that once was and will never be. And I’m grieving. And it’s so lonely out here.
I don’t know. I’m not suicid@l, I’m medicated and 4 years sober. It’s been hard and it’s getting harder to understand. I feel neglected and lonely. Anything helps please.

Hi gents, I wanted to share my journey with you all. I’m 31 years old and I got my vasectomy after having my second child because the wife and I decided we were done. Surgery was in October 2023. I had some strange nerve pain radiating to my groin for about 2 weeks but was certain the worst was over by thanksgiving and started exercising again.
The first week of December I got a horrible case of epididimo-orchitis. 10/10 pain. Was put on doxycycline and levoflaxcin for about 30 days. Was still hovering around 7/10 testicle pain going into the new year. I noticed that ejaculating would leave me in terrible pain the following day so I began abstaining. I waited 2 weeks and tried ejaculating again and that’s when the prostatitis symptoms came on. Burning in the urethra, lower abdomen pain, lower pain back. I freaked out and began realizing this wasn’t going away soon. I had a mental breakdown and was searching for answers. I contemplated suicide, I couldn’t eat, and I couldn’t sleep due to debilitating anxiety and fear.
I saw about 4 urologists, did 3 ultrasounds, and 4-5 urinalysis, everything came back clean. I found a pelvic rehabilitation specialist in Miami and began a 6 round series of pelvic injections. (Very pricey ~ $6k). Thank god I stored away some crypto that helped pay for it. I was also referred to a pelvic PT and have gone around 8-9 times. I consistently do daily stretches and some wand work my home. I radically changed my diet (dairy, gluten, process food - free), take herbs (turmeric, quercetin, zinc, etc.), and eliminated caffeine and alcohol.
My symptoms began to subside by the end of the 6 week injection series and I was cautiously feeling good about living life again. About 2 weeks post the final injection the prostatitis symptoms came back along with my mental agony. Every day is a mental battle and if it wasn’t for the support of my wife and family I don’t know if I would be able to function.
Where I’m at today (May 2024):
On a positive note my testicle pain has subsided quite a bit since December. I hover around 1-3 most days which is mostly tolerable and a large departure from the 10/10 pain in December. My urethra burns daily and I’m never able to fully void my urine. My lower abdomen pain is very consistent and discomforting. Ejaculating makes all the above worse so I do so sparingly. I’m trying to stay positive but it’s very hard when the only thing I want is to have is my life back.
Anyone else have similar symptoms?
I think about a reversal daily and have already consulted with Dr P in Orlando (2.5 hrs from me). Is it a good bet to wait to pull the trigger till the year mark?
Can a reversal even help with my prostatitis symptoms?
Thank you all so much for sharing your stories and giving guys like me hope. I hope to come back in a few months with a better update.

I am located in California. In September of 2023, my dad was involved in a car accident with a motorcyclist. My dad was at a complete stop at the red light of an intersection, for about 1-2 minutes. When the light turned green, he took his foot off the brake and before he was able to step on the gas pedal, a motorcyclist lane split and swiped the side of our bumper. There are some light scuff marks on the side of the bumper from the impact that easily wiped off; there are no scratches or dents to the car. The motorcyclist did not stumble or fall, and he did not exhibit any signs of injury or pain. After exchanging information, the motorcyclist hopped back on his motorcycle and drove off. No police were involved.
Now, the motorcyclist is claiming "serious" and "irreversible" injuries due to my dad's "negligence" and demanding our full policy limit ($100k) AND umbrella policy. My initial insurance agent has denied the other party's injury claims, as he believed we were not at fault. However, the other party and their attorney has been adamant and still demanding our policy limits.
Since my claim has not been resolved, my case got transferred to a new claims adjuster, who is now saying that there is causation on my dad's part, so the motorcyclist is owed money. It feels like the agent is just trying to make a settlement and close the case quickly to avoid going to court. (Both parties are with GEICO) I don't know how to handle the situation where my new agent is placing fault on my father, when the initial agent had determined we were not at fault.
Additionally, my family is concerned that the motorcyclist is trying to commit insurance fraud by claiming injuries he doesn't have. I have contacted California's Dept of Insurance about how to file a fraud claim, and the agent informed me that it would be up to my insurance to file that against the other party. When I requested that my case get escalated to the Special Investigations Unit for further analysis, my agent did not acknowledge my request.
I am lost on what other steps I can take to ensure that this incident is handled appropriately, as I do not want the motorcyclist to take advantage of my family and our policy.
Here are pictures of the damage. We do not believe that the motorcyclist would have been "seriously injured" if at all, especially because my dad did not even press on the gas pedal yet.
https://ibb.co/KFxhLV6
https://ibb.co/7K94bQw

Hi guys, I’m so happy to find a community with people that had similar experiences because if you’ve had your ankle broken, you rarely know someone else.
My question is regarding unexpected shooting pain after almost a year since my last surgery. I want to know what could be a possible cause if any of you experienced the same.
I will summarize all my surgeries here after i broke my ankle on an e-scooter in 2021 October: -1st surgery: external fixations to properly position foot and reduce swelling (not sure what they’re called in english) -2nd surgery: adjustment of the fixations (they looked at the x-rays and needed to do more, right after 1st surgery) -3rd surgery: removing fixations and adding plates and screws -4th surgery: local anesthesia, removal of 2 screws of the upper outer ankle that connected 2 bones, this would enable me to walk again
all 4 surgeries were done close to each other starting October 2021, ended January 2022 with the 4th one. shortly after i started bearing more weight, then walking. my ankle was still very swollen up to 7-8 months after the surgery. 1.5 years later than the last surgery, it was agreed by the doctors that considering there’s still stiffness and swelling, to remove the hardware.
-5th surgery: removal of all hardware (June 2023)
Now it’s almost June 2024. I have had weird type of pain in January that went away. I can describe this as “locking, shooting”. It’s like i stepped on something i shouldn’t and that would immediately almost drop me suddenly when i was walking just fine. Nothing like lasting, sizzling pain. If i don’t move, no pain.
I ignored this because it would happen randomly sometimes and would go away. I am otherwise very healthy and would walk 20-30k even some days with no problems.
Now end of may 2024, I have the same thing happening to me but this time 4 days in a row, nothing helped and i almost can’t step on my foot without this shooting pain feeling. The shooting happens in my inner ankle and now my foot also has a bit of a numbness to it (very slight).
Has anyone gone through something like this A Year after their surgery when everything seemingly went fine? Any ideas what it could be? i already booked an appointment but i’m very concerned and thinking of going to the hospital emergency if there’s one more day of me not being able to walk properly.
I appreciate if you read this far <3

X rays late 2023 https://imgur.com/a/5GQzcFD
Early 2023 https://imgur.com/a/Fh6e6j0
2022 https://imgur.com/a/zDnAwBL
Back photos recent:
https://imgur.com/a/XFBfHph
https://imgur.com/a/pSyW6au
https://imgur.com/a/85UYw5X
https://imgur.com/a/B0FZZlP
Info: 35/F, 95 lbs, 5’3” current medications: meloxicam, trazodone, lexapro; supplement various antioxidants and antionflammatories
Previously very active- personal trainer, tennis instructor, walk 3-5 miles a day, currently nearly bed bound
Ok, so I’m kind of at the end of my rope her and hoping someone can look at a series of x rays I’ve had over the past couple of years and provide some guidance. I feel like no medical professionals have taken me seriously and my pelvis now feels very unstable; I can barely function anymore and haven’t been able to hold down a job in a year and am scared to walk. The short version is I believe I had an initial injury to my sacral ligament(s) years ago that was never adequately treated and it’s progressively gotten worse and has distorted muscular attachments and now effecting my spine and full body. I’m not sure how to proceed with treatment at this point and feel like I’m wasting away. Sorry for the long post but I hope to provide some context.
In like 2015 I had some sort of undetermined injury when deadlifting; I felt something sort of slip in my lower left sacrum area and a strange full body sensation. I immediately stopped and mostly stayed in bed for a week before seeking medical attention. At the time there was some pain and feelings of tightness on my left side, but not crazy. I was sent to pt where they just had me basically stretching my left side and doing basic glute strengthening. I did this for 6 months with no improvement and basically gave up and decided to live with it. Continued working and being active with continuous discomfort.
In early 2022 I felt something again happen in my left side, it felt like everything sort of collapsed inwards and upwards on my left side and my right side felt very “loose” in my pelvis and also ribs. I went to a doctor who was dismissive but gave me an x ray
X ray here: https://imgur.com/a/zDnAwBL They said I looked fine, but now looking closely you can sort of see directly above the coccyx a bone or ligament at a 45 degree angle, which appears to be distorting the ligaments on the left side upwards. There’s also what appears to be an injury or scar tissue in the upper right of the sacrum as well as avulsed ligaments on the ilium, and iliolumbar ligaments on the right side. Note the position of my iud, as it moves significantly on next x rays.The doctor said I could do pt if I felt it was helpful, which I did for 3 months with no improvement.
Early 2023, felt additional slipping inwards and up on my left side. It felt like my entire pelvic floor moved up. This year I also fractured a rib on my right side while trying to play tennis, but didn’t seek treatment because I learned there’s nothing to do but rest. All the ribs on my right side feel loose and left side feels incredibly tight and restricted.
X rays here: https://imgur.com/a/Fh6e6j0 Went to urgent care because it felt serious and was dismissed. Again looking closely you can see a white structure on the left side above the coccyx avulsed upwards. From the left view you can see all of the enlarged muscle and ligaments on the right side, which look disconnected to me.
2023 x rays: https://imgur.com/a/5GQzcFD Late 2023 it got much worse and I went to a spinal surgeon who took x rays and said it looked fine, just a bit of scoliosis. Note the location of my iud. It looks like my left pelvic wall is collapsing inwards. Complete loss of the midline below the sacrum which I believe shows the glutes. The soft tissue and ligaments look absolutely crazy to me and on lateral views you can see what appears to be tough fibrotic bands going up and down my abdomen. It feels like my body is trying to stay upright on the left and the right side feels completely loose and unstable. When I walk I have to stop to adjust every few minutes by pulling down on the outside of my left hip and pushing in on my spine above my sacrum, I feel little pops and slight relief doing this, but it’s constant. When sitting it feels like my left pelvis sort of floats outward and right is in and up. It feels like the entire pelvic floor is up several inches and there’s maybe one inch between the top of my pelvis and ribs now.
Back photos recently:
https://imgur.com/a/XFBfHph
https://imgur.com/a/pSyW6au
https://imgur.com/a/85UYw5X
https://imgur.com/a/B0FZZlP
I think on its face, this looks “ok” but you can sort of see bulging right muscles on the left and lowered ribs on the right. Also I’m trying to stand straight in most of these photos, but there’s pretty extreme kyphosis in my cervical region. The skin has darkened a lot and sometimes there’s lots of redness. You can see some dark marks on my spine, but it’s not super visible here. Also, bizarrely, you can wind of see streaks of either darker or lighter skin in areas where I feel either extreme tightness or laxity, maybe indicates fibrosis or inflammation.
I worked up the courage to go to a physiatrist last week, where they sort of shrugged and said maybe I just herniated a disk. I forced them to prescribe at least an mri, which I am going to next week, but I’m just scared they won’t take it seriously since they wouldn’t even look at my x rays, saying you can’t really see soft tissue or ligaments (I understand this is the standard view, but I’m sure you can see them on these x rays or at least get a general picture, especially the fact that my cervix went from below the sacrum and anteverted and has moved up several inches and is at a 45 degree angle). They prescribed meloxicam for the pain and inflammation and said this will probably fix it, which I highly doubt.
My full body is affected, my cervical area feels collapsed inwards, I have constant headaches and feelings of vertigo. I have periods of deep throbbing in my left abdomen, like there is a restricted artery. My left side feels hard and weak and I noted my left leg is an inch smaller than the right in terms of circumference. I can’t feel the outside of my left foot anymore and there are dark marks over several of my vertebrae in the lumbar and thoracic region, maybe bruising? It feels like all the muscles in my left hip and glute are literally underneath my sacrum while on the right they’re hanging outwards, hard to describe. My coccyx is detached now, I’m sure, and I constantly feel it slipping up and left and feel a little more stability when I physically push it down and to the right. I can barely function or think and spend 90% of my thoughts and energy on how to position myself to feel stable body wise. I used to be very functional but I lost my job and haven’t been able to get a new one, I’m so uncomfortable when traveling to interviews that I come off inarticulate and just sitting there I’m scared that my pelvis or spine collapse any moment. I’m almost certain that this left sided tightness and potential fibrotic muscle is strangling blood flow, and notably in the cervical region this to my brain. I feel extremely fatigued and depressed and can barely eat anymore…I’ve went from 120 lbs (with a good amount of muscle mass) to 90-95ish and I know this cannot be good for my musculoskeletal stability, but any time I’ve tried to work out I get pains on my spine, ribs, hip and shoulder. If this was just scoliosis, I would accept it, but I can constantly feel my left pelvis shifting and the resulting instability is extremely distressing.
Any thoughts? Will mri be adequate to diagnose the fundamental issue? Should I look into surgery or will I just be laughed away? I’m scared it’s just muscle and ligament avulsion and no one can do anything unless there are bone breaks, which there may or may not be at this point. I understand sacral stress fractures can be missed on x ray?
Thank you for any thoughts, I appreciate any guidance at all!!

today she texted me again she wanted to go to walmart to get snacks so i took her out with our dog. my dad was in his room, gone. locked. she says she knocked the door 5 times. never answered. life knows what to do. my mom was at work, my sister tells my mom she's going to with me. my mom tells her to leave now. the neighbor is outside. observing. and im waiting to see what happens. im ready for whatever life throws my way. but my dad's a fucking pussy with a gun. high as fuck on percs.
one last time before i cant see u again or our dog, one last trip. just us.
i know you like the back of my hand. you have my hair, my humor, my comebacks. born at 9 months old, weighting 8 pounds. smart. beautiful. when the positive came up, i started screaming of happiness and running. you made me a big sister, and i knew i wasnt gonna be alone anymore. i thought of all our adventures. until my mom started crying, desperate. she was finishing her nursing degree, i didnt know she was gonna divorce our dad. you were the stitch to my lilo and nany. you're the glue that makes our family stay together.
i didnt care if u were to be a boy or a girl. at that moment i knew i would be the smallest, the shortest in our family. i felt the responsability fall on me. all in the spawn of 10 minutes. i knew i wouldnt be able to go to college, i knew i would have to be your big brother. i knew i would have to protect you.
and i did, for the longest time. every time our parents would fight i would take u with me and put my fav cartoons for us to watch. i loved babysitting you all the time while mom slept off third shift and dad was working.
i loved making you smile and laugh. you were a perfect baby and are a perfect girl. for you i'll fight any mf that crosses the line, if it wasnt for you i wouldnt have made it to where i am. if you hadnt waited for me in the summer to watch New Girl at 1 am in the morning after i clocked out, i would have quit. you made me a mom, and wish i had my own family. im just a sister, but if anything happens i'll always be there for you
if it wasnt for my sister i would have never fought my abuser back. she was 3 when my dad first whip her with a belt. she peed herself, and for the first time at 12 i screamed ran and blocked him. he marked my thighs, i could care less about the scars they're faded now. i didnt feel the pain. all i felt was rage. for the first time i saw my dad for what he was. i knew unconsciously, yet that moment was it.
2020 my dad's losing his shit and i have to leave. 2021 im in the kitchen arguing calling my mom and my dad's throwing shit. my sister starts crying sitting on a couch on the other side of the apartment. my dad is on my side and starts going to her. asking why is she crying
and ik that walk. ik my sister is terrified. she's not used to this. never will be. it isnt normal. so i jump a counter and run up to her blocking again. always between her and my dad. like its nothing. and its nothing. my body is just meat and bones. i can take it. what is an animal screaming at your face when a baby is on the line?
nothing. for you, who kept me alive for so long. for you who i shared a bed till we couldnt stand each other. for you my twin 10 years younger. for you im reporting our dad and taking the fall.
i love my sister, and i'd rather die than have her go through what i went through. my dad hit her. left a small bruise, a little stupid bruise. like always. nothing bad. all within the safety of law enforcement. i dare him to touch her again after tomorrow

NB: If you prefer to read this article from Google Docs, with embedded Scryfall card images, follow this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ipGx-NpPmVbRfnmiNpMlB4V6YA341UuZrBYQFSyyHrE/edit

INTRO

Hello! My name is GlosuU (https://x.com/GlosuUMTG). I'm a Limited MTG enthusiast with a humble portfolio: I qualified for and participated in the AC4 and AC5, and will be participating in PT Amsterdam at the end of June. In the AC5 I teamed up with Ryan Condon (AC5 runner-up) and Ethan Saks (Lord Tupperware), all 3 of us bringing Quintorius Combo as our Explorer deck of choice for the AC5. I was in a feature match versus the AC5 champ, Toni Ramis Pascual, where I lost my win-and-in to the top 8, and ended 12th out of 32. You might also know me for the "Ode to WAR'' article that I wrote and posted when WAR came as a flashback format some months ago: https://www.reddit.com/lrcast/comments/1bhpxb2/an\_ode\_to\_war\_of\_the\_spark/ . I'm not a content creator, but I do produce some stuff here and there when I feel like it (deep analysis of my AC5 matches are posted in my YouTube channel, I had Ryan Condon analyze them together with me - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jhdl85xrunw&list=PLtfDMdAYlZqlVE-Bo_Gh5FsxujrFTEUyK&ab_channel=GlosuUMTG ). With my "credentials'' out of the way, I'm back with a new article, this time to praise IKO! We are getting IKO Premier Drafts on MTGA this Tuesday, so hopefully I can get you excited!
Disclaimer: WAR was my favorite set when I wrote the previous article, and I have to admit the flashback on Arena soured my experience of it a bit (Grixis colors were too open in the pods I felt, and the vanilla creatures in WAR stood out like a sore thumb compared to the FIRE ones). IKO is an all-timer for me and I'm really hoping the cycling deck will not be consistently open in the flashback pods, because that would be a bummer… Regardless, I do truly believe that WAR and IKO are amazing sets, and I hope I can convince you to love IKO in the same way I do, similarly to how I tried to convince you to love WAR!

My 17L tier list

If tier lists are your thing, I have no problem sharing mine with you: https://www.17lands.com/tier_list/dfdd3d0c69664a0b8ffbd7372848ab5f
NOTE: creating the tier list for IKO felt more difficult than for WAR. There are a LOT of cards that are contextually powerful, and it was hard to decide for me if I would P1P1 a Fire Prophecy (floor is extremely high, ceiling is pretty good too) or a Chevill (ceiling much higher, but gold card). Still, I did my best.

IKORIA: Lair of Behemoths setting

The main theme that inspired the IKO setting was giant monsters (Godzilla, King Kong, Mothra… you name it). Many of the mythics and rares had some silly Godzilla alt-arts, so if you are a fan of this genre, do NOT skip this set! The flashy new mechanic for the set was Mutate, which has some complex rules, but did its best to capture the flavor of beasts and creatures mutating into scary abominations. In opposition to the giant, wild monsters are the nimble humans that need to group together to stand a chance. Now, whenever the MTG team tries to design a battlecruiser-like format (giant creatures clashing with each other), it has been very difficult for them to balance it well for sweaty spikes. Most recently, we had BRO, where the theme was supposed to be giant robot machines clashing with each other, but the Prototype mechanic flopped really hard, and playing small, dinky creatures and getting value with Unearth was the way to go. Similarly, Mutate pales in comparison to the small humans and the cycling strategies, but I'm happy to say that it's still a viable strategy if open, it is much better than Prototype in BRO!
The set was also designed with wedges in mind (3 color combinations where one color and its enemy colors are present), but it was NOT marketed as a 3 color set. The big support is for the enemy color pairs, allied color pairs are just lightly supported with keyword themes. Do not expect to draft 3-color decks constantly like in KTK, but do expect to draft enemy color pairs (with and without splash) frequently. Colors are a bit loose in IKO anyway, since the focus is on archetypes and synergies.

MECHANICS

I. Cycling (and the Tier 0 RW cycling deck)

Let's start with the elephant in the room: the infamous cycling deck. MTG, as a card game, has variance baked in, especially with the mana (lands) system. The designers have made some mechanics that feel really good to play with because they smooth out your draws. For example: scrying, looting and… yes, cycling. Topdecked a useless card? Well, it's a great feeling to pitch it to redraw another card. Ask those who played with Blood tokens in VOW. Cycling has made its appearance here and there, and they made it a big part of IKO. But… they went overboard with it in this set. Not only did they design plenty and powerful cycling payoffs (which… honestly, does cycling need payoffs? Cycling is just a good mechanic, period, why does it need payoffs?), but they also put cycling in a lot of cards and, most importantly, they put SINGLE COLORLESS cycling in a lot of cards. This means that a dedicated RW cycling deck could be running an uncastable Memory Leak and still be stoked about it, because you don't ever have to cast the card, you just need to cycle it to trigger all the payoffs. Also for some reason many of the cycling payoffs have cycling themselves, so it's a no brainer to include them in your deck (sometimes you have to balance the amount of payoffs and enablers, for example the Chalk Outline/Insiduous Roots decks in MKM, but with cycling it's just easy mode). And yeah. Then there's Zenith Flare. Which is an uncommon. Which is easy to find in most games because cycling decks churn through their library fast. And they will dome you for 10 and you'll be left scratching your head. My personal rule to keep my sanity: assume the opposing cycling deck has only one Zenith Flare. If I die to a second Zenith Flare, I usually consider it a non-game, one of those you can't really do much about (like a deck with multiple bombs in OTJ).
Now, everything I said sounds dull and gloomy. And I'm sure that the designers would probably add a color requirement to the "Cycling 1" cards in hindsight, maybe make Zenith Flare a rare (or heck, a mythic). Nowadays they would probably make the triggered abilities trigger only once per turn. But… there's also good news! Personally, I think playing with and against cycling decks is FUN (especially if it's not a broken cycling deck, but a reasonable one). Cycling decks play like combo decks, where you try to set up during the first 3 turns of the game, and then watch the fireworks from turns 4+. Opponents can disrupt the key pieces, build their decks to counter the cycling plan (hello, lifegain!), and, most importantly, often cycling decks lose to themselves. Excusez-moi? Yes, you heard right. Because cycling decks skimp on lands (more on that in a sec), sometimes they will have an opener of 2 lands, 1 payoff and 4 cycling cards. That's a keep, but it's very beatable if the opponent answers the only payoff, and then the cycling deck cycles and cycles endlessly to find lands while falling behind on tempo on board. Cycling decks also mulligan badly, because one less card in hand means the cycling chain is more likely to brick. In a way, I feel like cycling decks are overall balanced in the format (!), as long as cycling is contested in the draft pods (as it should be!) and as long as non-cycling decks also pick cycling cards in their colors highly! You're in B? Please don't let that Memory Leak wheel! It's a good card in your deck too!
So why do cycling decks cut lands? I'm a big fan of Opt/Consider effects in Limited MTG. Increasing the consistency of your deck for a measly single mana draws you to your good cards more often and it also means less mana screw and flood. My general rule of thumb is that I cut one land every 2 Opts I have in my deck, as long as I don't go below 9 blue sources. Now, "cycling 1" cards don't scry like Opt, but they cantrip all the same. The general rule of thumb is to cut one land for every three "cycling 1" cards you have in your deck. And how low can you go? Some psychos have gone down to 12 lands, although I generally do like to have at least 13-14 lands. But if you run 17 lands in your dedicated cycling deck, you're gonna flood out A LOT. Enjoy cutting lands in your Limited decks for no reason? Try out IKO! 🙂

II. Companions

From controversial deck to controversial mechanic: Companions! Only 10 IKO cards had this mechanic, and they were all rares… how impactful could it have been? Well, so impactful that Constructed formats were broken in half and WotC had to errata the mechanic: to cast a Companion from the sideboard, you first had to pay 3 at sorcery speed to put it in hand. Drannith Magistrate, the Companion hate card, was left looking silly. Turns out that getting an extra card in your opener, a card you also had built around, was one way to break the game. While Companions were really bad for Constructed, they were AMAZING for Limited. Why? Because picking up one early and building around it made for very unique drafts! Many desirable cards would need to be foregone to meet the companion requirement, whereas other less desirable cards suddenly skyrocketed in your pick order. And who hasn't built around one sweet rare only to never draw it and your otherwise sketchy deck go 0-3, all your dreams crushed? Companions fixed that, since you built around them and you always had access to them. Some were more powerful (ahem Lurrus, Gyruda), others were usually not worth it to companion them (Yorion, Zirda…), but regardless they were all high picks because even in the maindeck they were great (and balancing the tension whether to companion them or maindeck them was really skill testing). Companions came back in the bonus sheet in MOM and they were as fun as they had been in IKO, leaving many of us wishing that they would come back more often, because they really improve the draft format they are in. I personally would also love for WotC to print new companions, but of course seeing how they broke Constructed in half, they probably would need to be super careful about them. 🙁 WotC, if you're reading this: bring more Companions!
Ethan Saks (aka Lord Tupperware) is quite well-known for his love of Companions, so if you want a deeper dive on them and what makes each of them tick, here's a video you can watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmmOWYVAzbw&ab_channel=LordsofLimited (DISCLAIMER: this video is for the Companions in MOM, not IKO, but most of the stuff still applies)

III. Mutate (and the UG Mutate deck)

Mutate was the new flashy mechanic for IKO and supposed to charm the Timmy players out there by voltroning a creature and creating an unfathomable monster. Mutate creatures can be found in every color, but are most prevalent in U and G, where there's also payoffs for mutating. In essence, a creature with Mutate could behave like an Aura on an existing creature (keeping the stats of one of the two creatures plus all the abilities of both creatures) or a creature by itself. While you can't blow out a creature mutating onto another on the stack (killing the creature on the battlefield means the creature on the stack still resolves as a standalone creature), putting two creatures together does mean a big tempo swing if the opponent removes the mutated stack. For example, playing a Thieving Otter on T3, then mutating a Dreamtail Heron on top of it on T4 and getting in, drawing 2 cards… All of that sounded mouthwatering great in spoiler season (a flying Scroll Thief? Who doesn't like that?). But, when you assembled that in a game, and the opponent then removed the mutated creature, that meant that with one single spell they had removed both your T3 and T4 plays, so even though you had accrued card advantage, you could be very behind on board.
Was Mutate as bad as Prototype in BRO? Thankfully not! If open, a good UG Mutate could be a great deck, and stacking mutates on top of each other, each of them accruing incremental value, was a lot of fun when it worked. In essence, Mutate decks were A + B decks, with a good balance of A and B (A = 1-2 mana creatures you were happy to Mutate on, e.g. Essence Symbiote, Pollywog Symbiote; B = mutate creatures, preferably strong ones like Archipelagore or Auspicious Starrix). Playing a mutate payoff on T2 followed by a mutated Migratory Rendhorn on T3 was key to ramping, fixing and getting on good footing in the game (since you would also splash some powerful Mutate rares in other colors usually). Since A + B was so tight and you'd rather not include stuff that wasn't one or the other in your deck (to improve consistency), ideally your interaction would come in the form of Pouncing Shoresharks. But you'd still usually squeeze some space for some removal.
Mutate cards are also not unplayable outside of UG, but be mindful of how many non-human creatures you have in your deck and what creatures you are happy mutating on top of. Forbidden Friendship was great at providing some Mutate fodder in non-UG decks, for example, and you would be happy mutating a Cloudpiercer on top of it on T4 (you got a mana discount and a hasty 5/4 rummager, sweet!). BTW, do not confuse Forbidden Friendship with Cathartic Reunion, the arts on those cards are too similar!

IV. Keyword Counters

IKO was the first time that we got keyword counters. Apart from mutating, you could still build monsters by giving your creatures extra keywords. Some IKO tricks look like traditional tricks we see in Limited, but the counter hanging around can be quite important! For example, Unexpected Fangs creating a big lifelinker could be game-swinging. Be mindful of these tricks when having a Heartless Act in your deck, since you can get blown out very easily if they respond by giving a counter to their creature, and your removal will fizzle. Also, always roll Hexproof counter on a T3 Crystalline Giant - if you don't, you need to get better at MTG! (thank goodness Covid was around when IKO came out, imagine Giant in a paper MTG game)

FORMAT OVERVIEW

There's tons of draft guides out there, so I'll try to keep this brief. We already mentioned that a nuts RW cycling deck can be considered Tier 0. A reasonable RW cycling deck is still Tier 1-2, so it's definitely worth getting into if you get enough of the good cycling payoffs. UG Mutate is like Tier 2-3, so what other decks are out there?

I. Tier 1: Black, Humans and the Mardu Wedge

When cycling is not absurdly open, I have a strong bias to end up in a Mardu-esque deck (any of the color pairs, with or without splash). I love B in this set, even though it's not a cycling color. IKO has my favorite common ever printed: Bushmeat Poacher! The card doesn't look super strong at first glance, and 4 mana for a 2/4 is quite bad these days but… it resists a Fire Prophecy, for starters. And once you see the card in action on the opposite side of the battlefield, you're going to understand how ANNOYING it is. You'd be surprised how often the engine of Durable Coilbug + Bushmeat Poacher can grind out games in this format. Block, sac, gain life, draw cards, rinse, repeat. Honestly, it's as annoying as Cauldron Familiar in Constructed or Lampad of Death's Vigil in THB. And let me remind you that you gain life equal to the creature's toughness. Wanna remove my Honey Mammoth? Well, that will cost you your removal spell, and I gain 6 life and a card, thank you very much! One of the things I enjoy most in Limited is making opponent's removal look bad, and boy, oh boy, does Bushmeat Poacher do that!
So yeah Poacher might be my favorite common, but B has even better stuff to offer with Blood Curdle (that menace counter is super relevant) and Whisper Squad (which also combos nicely with Poacher). And Memory Leak should be taken as a great B common, I've mentioned this already.
Mardu decks can be built in a myriad of ways and synergies. There's the straight forward Human go-wide and pump your team theme out there. There's sac synergies. There's go-wide Mutate synergies: Forbidden Friendship is a premium R common in most R decks except for dedicated RW cycling decks ("Rally at the Hornburg"-lite is still very good!), and then you have stuff like Regal Leosaur. There's menace + removal synergies… And you have some sweet buildarounds like Weaponize the Monsters, Bastion of Remembrance and Offspring's Revenge. All in all, I love getting into Mardu decks in this format, and the aristocrats gameplay speaks to my heart.

II Tier 2: BG Reanimate, UR spell matters, Ultimatum decks

BG Reanimate is probably my favorite deck of the format. If I start B, and then see Mardu being contested (as it should), but G dummies coming to me, I'm very happy to jump into BG. We've seen that Back For More is still great in OTJ, but whereas in that set you only have Spinewoods Armadillo to easily combo with it, this set has several big dumb uncommons that cycle. Back For More is even better here in IKO! Getting back a Tytanoth Rex with it can usually net you a 3-for-1 (fight something and ambush something in combat, Rex still surviving). It is also the perfect home for Honey Mammoth (that card was a surprising overperformer back in the day, since then we know how good this style of cards can be for G decks looking to stabilize and turn the corner). Also, Bushmeat Poacher gaining you tons of life when opponents try to remove your big dummy creatures is very satisfying.
UR spells can also be powerful when open. Sprite Dragon can get out of hand quickly, and T3 sequencing Forbidden Friendship into Of One Mind feels super good. A key roleplayer for the deck is Spelleater Wolverine, and PSA: you can meet the condition by cycling instants and sorceries to the GY too, no need to actually cast them! Wolverine can fit other decks too if you get a good amount of instants and sorceries (e.g. in Rakdos with cycling and removal spells). I'm not super high on U in the format and thus don't get into UR spells often, but if you start R and U flows, it's a possible path to get into. There are also UJeskai cycling decks with Ominous Seas as the payoff.
Finally, a word on the Ultimatums: they are more powerful than they look! With the exception of Emergent Ultimatum (which has an important failcase: drawing your single-color big spells before it), resolving any of them in the late game will often put you in a winning position. Think of them a bit like Cruel Ultimatum in OTJ: fun cards to draft early and build towards the late game, prioritizing the dual lands in order to cast them.

III Tier 3: Allied color pairs/Keyword decks

With the exception of RB, which is a good deck, all other allied color pairs feel weaker. UB Flash and UW flyers can be a thing if you draft the rares that support them, but don't expect them to be super powerful. I do want to mention the WG Vigilance deck, because it is one of the counters to the cycling deck. Get a couple Alert Heedbonders, put some big butts on the board and laugh at your opponent trying to Zenith Flare your face when you're at 40 life! 2/4 also survives Fire Prophecy, so cycling decks often have to point a Flare to one of the Heedbonders, which is sweet! RG Trample is not really a deck, if you see the RG rare, it's a good card, but you can just splash it in any G deck. Beware also of the Wedge buildaround enchantments at rare, except for Offspring's Revenge, they are all generally quite bad!

SAMPLE DRAFTS AND TROPHIES

It has not been easy to get "clean" 17L trophy logs: 17L was in infant stage when IKO was the main format, so no game replays back then, and during the IKO flashbacks Arena pushed some log updates that made 17L struggle to log everything correctly. Still, thanks to some friends, I have gathered a few:
TROPHY 1 (courtesy of Sheesh): https://www.17lands.com/draft/263832207ed749b7947e7a40149f7380 - a typical RW cycling trophy
TROPHY 2: https://www.17lands.com/deck/ac08eb9f76874eafb67c4e201a5bb21e/1 - Lurrus Companion (this quick draft trophy got me into Mythic for the first time back in the day!)
TROPHY 3 (courtesy of TripleB): https://www.17lands.com/deck/c7fb935d7ac443b4bb895f43622accc7 - BW Humans, some games missing
TROPHY 4: https://www.17lands.com/draft/19b4a66cbec5484d8d3b0acd54f61787 - Golgari Reanimate/grind, sadly only shows the first two games
TROPHY 5 (courtesy of TripleB): https://www.17lands.com/deck/d0d77324997f45478a7b853067a0f438 - UR spells/mutate, no game replays available since it was a Traditional Draft from when IKO was the main format
TROPHY 6: https://www.17lands.com/deck/96ffb9ab71144753bb87496e33e32545/1 - UB Flash/Mutate, also a Trad Draft

CLOSING THOUGHTS

While I think I covered most of the format, I feel that there's a lot of things I didn't have space to cover. I truly believe that this format plays and feels amazingly well, just as long as the RW cycling deck is contested enough. Sweet buildarounds, companions, all-in synergies, Mutate, and a load of other nonsense. This is a Dave Humphreys set you really don't want to miss! I am stoked to spam it and (hopefully) see it hold up after all these years!

27M, I broke my upper arm just below the shoulder at 16 and had it fixed surgically with a plate after couple of weeks after the fall. The plate was removed a year later. Since the fall or the first surgery, the front part of my deltoid muscle has slowly disappeared. It's been 10 years, and while I haven't had much pain, there's a noticeable gap in the front of my shoulder. I'm starting to feel less confident in my shoulder's function, especially with activities like climbing and sports, and I'm concerned about the impact on my back and surrounding muscles. I am curious if nerve damage can be repaired after such a long time and any other thoughts people have about possibilities to fix this. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone, I'm a 37 yr old male experiencing ongoing chest pain for the past few years. While I understand this community isn't a substitute for medical advice, I'd really appreciate some insights into whether my symptoms align with what others have experienced with costochondritis.
Pain location:

• Center of chest
• Directly below left breast
• Upper left back
• Left arm
• Left jaw (tightness, not pain)

Description of pain:

• Dull ache (never sharp)
• Tightness and dryness in muscles
• Clicking or popping sensation in left chest when slouching or stretching
• No shortness of breath
• Pressing on the painful areas doesn't necessarily worsen the pain.
• Pressure or massage on the chest provides some relief

Frequency:

• Constant pain while awake
• Comes and goes in weeks for 2 years now.

I know you can't diagnose through text, but any thoughts on whether my symptoms might be similar to costochondritis would be appreciated.

F20, I've seen doctors over this in 2 countries and unfortunately always had a negative experience to the point that I avoid going altogether from pure terror.
It first started in 2017, I got a headache one day that resulted in one of the worst weeks of my life. My head hurt like someone was squeezing it together, everything was spinning, I physically couldn't stand looking at a screen or book, and had nausea that prevented me from eating much. This went on for a full week, I only took paracetamol and the doctors couldn't tell me what was wrong despite doing some tests. I had to take the full week off from school and laid in bed all day long. After a week the dizziness and nausea were gone and the headache calmed down a lot, but I still felt fragile and eventually it disappeared and I moved on in life except for one concerning part, ever since that week, I can no longer lay on the back of my head for long because it hurts. I have genuinely not spent more than 5 minutes at once laying with my head on the pillow, I also cant rest it against a wall or airplane seat, etc because it hurts. Been a side sleeper since.
Since then, I've had the migraine return about 3 times, but not with as much nausea and barely any dizziness as the first time. The last time was different because I had intense upper back pain, neck pain and a headache, it lasted for a full month. This was in August 2022. My head and neck are generally fine except for some light pressure in my head every now and then when I sleep bad, but my upper back hurts. Not enough to keep me from carrying out my daily tasks, but it hurts when I lean against my bed for too long or I put all my weight against a chair, car seat, plane, etc. I did see a doctor for it but she told me that it's because I'm underweight (168cm, 48kg) and don't have enough fat on my back to protect my bones, but I've always been underweight, weighing even less in the past and never had an issue resting my back against something until I got the pain in that August.
I'm quite literally shaking typing this out because I'm honestly terrified of doctors and hospitals in general and I'm scared of being told I have cancer or some kind of injury that will make me lose the ability to walk or something, but I discovered this sub and hoped maybe someone was kind enough to explain what is going on and how I can stop it. I cant tell if this is enough information but if you have additional questions about the symptoms or anything I'd be happy to answer them.

I have been on T since September, and earlier this year, I decided to try intramuscular because my subq sites were getting super itchy and I couldn't inject my full dose in one spot without significant leakage (so I was doing two subq shots to split the amount up).
It went great! Felt weird, but worked nicely. I had enough IM needles from when I first started T for just under two months of injections. Once those were gone, I did a couple weeks of subq, and last week's only stopped itching at day 5/6, and is still a bit itchy (Sunday is my shot day).
I went to the pharmacy and asked for some 25g 1.5" needles. Just did my injection with that long-ass needle. MY FUCKING THIGH TWITCHED. TWICE. THAT HURT. I backed that fucker up and finished my shot.
Just compared that bitch to my last IM needles to find that, yep, those others were only an inch long, and it seemed SUPER long because it was lmao 😭 I will be returning to the pharmacy to get 1 inch ones lol thankfully they were only 25¢ each. (Yes, I know I could use the obscenely long ones still, but I like being able to rest the hub against my skin at max insertion for stability. The less jiggling, the less pain ime.)

Sorry if this is a bit disjointed and long, there's a TL;DR at the end. I just had my LEEP on Thursday and wanted to share my experience. Hopefully this soothes a fellow over-thinker.
Background: 30 yr old female, 130 lbs, 5'2". No moderate, severe or chronic health conditions.
I was diagnosed with high-risk (HR) HPV with LSIL/abnormal cells in February of this year. Not 16/18, but another HR strain. I got at least one shot of the HPV vaccine before I turned 26 so I was really shocked at this. I had a complete emotional breakdown because of the connection to HPV and cervical cancer, plus I just felt....dirty. I've gone through my sexually active years without getting as much as a yeast infection, and now I had just been hit with an STI, and the one that causes cancer. I went into a pretty deep depression and honestly I'm still in that depression zone but not nearly as much. I did a ton of research and my findings told me that even if it was cancer, it's one of the most curable ones especially given my age, health, etc.
My primary doctor referred me to a gyno's office connected to the hospital I go to, and I scheduled an appointment for March 1st. Gyno (who was actually not an OBGYN but an APRN/midwife?) basically did a slightly more advanced exam/questionnaire then I got another referral to an actual OBGYN for a colposcopy and scheduled it for April 1st. I thought I would have the colpo/biopsy with the APRN during my March appointment but I guess that's just a "yeah your primary is right you need a colpo" step. Idk, very confusing.
April 1st comes, the doctor that was available for that date (I wanted to get this done asap) had some less than favorable reviews on the internet so that made me a little uneasy. Between each appointment I was spending hours researching, redditing, googling, youtubing etc. so I wouldn't go into this completely ignorant and hopefully minimize the chance of any BS being pulled.
My doctor was, to my surprise, very chill, professional and knowledgeable. Took time to answer all my questions, we even had some laughs. Please ladies, find a doctor that makes you feel comfortable if you can. No question is a silly question and no doctor or nurse should make you feel like you're stupid for raising concerns or asking a lot of questions. If you feel something is off or a doc is being an a-hole, that's your sign to GTFO and find another doctor. Pleasant staff make this experience so much better.
The colpo: wasn't that bad. They crack you open like a pistachio with a speculum (like they would use for pap smear) and take a look at your cervix with this scope. A vinegar solution is applied to highlight the abnormal cells. My doc's colpo machine did have a screen that could show me what he was seeing, although it wasn't working and honestly I'm glad. I think seeing what was going on inside of me would make me worry more. So I just had to take my doctor's word for it when he said the area of abnormal cells was small.
I had a punch biopsy done during my colpo and oh man. It hurt. I wasn't instructed to take ibuprofen beforehand. I'm not sure if they didn't think I would need a biopsy or what but holy crap. 2 samples were taken, at 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock on my cervix, and I received a curettage as well. The curettage didn't hurt or was minor in comparison to the biopsy. After the biopsy, a "liquid bandage" was applied, this bandage is called Monsel's solution I believe. It's a mustard yellow paste.
The biopsy caused immediate moderate cramping and pain. The "6 o'clock" one, which was a larger sample, made me flinch and let out a little yelp. 6 o'clock hurt a lot. I will say that my doctor talked about what he was going to do before doing or as he was doing it so it's not like I was taken entirely by surprise. However, you don't realize how sensitive your cervix is until a chunk is taken from it.
After the biopsy, I felt this dull pain, nausea and cramping and apparently had excessive bleeding. Dribbles of blood were present on the procedure chair and floor, some of which had been cleaned up by the nurse/assistant prior to me sitting up so who knows how much was there. Doc confirmed this excessive bleeding in my after visit summary, but it wasn't so much so that it warranted some kind of emergency. I experienced some spotting for about 2 to 3 days after. I expected more blood in my pads but that never happened. I think seeing all this blood, knowing where it came from and why it was there made me even more nauseous.
The nausea and...weakness after the biopsy really had me messed up. I could barely focus as my doctor went into detail about what to possibly expect afterwards, what he saw (he even drew a little picture of my cervix), answered any questions I had. We said our goodbyes, I got dressed and made a mad dash to the waiting area's water cooler. I figured some cool water would calm my nerves and my stomach. I stupidly walked home after the procedure (I live in Chicago, very close to my doc's office). Nothing terrible happened but in hindsight, what if I passed out in the office, in the street? If you can ladies, have someone with you to get you home safely and for support. Or, at the very least, take an uber after.
After getting home I checked my pad, everything was good although I did have some "coffee grounds" in my pad from the Monsel's solution. The doc warned me about this and to expect it for a few days. I crashed on my couch for a little nap before going to a concert later that evening because I don't know how to take a day off.
The next month following my biopsy was largely uneventful, I did have intercourse about 2.5 weeks post-biopsy with no issues or pain, although the thought of infection and the whole process made it hard to enjoy sex (I healed up just fine so this was more unnecessary worrying). I didn't experience any pain, fever, or excessive bleeding, only some mild discomfort/cramping/lethargy (likely due to mentally stressing myself out) on day 2. I did however, experience one moment that freaked me out:
Day 3 post-biopsy: I got home from after work (my job requires me to be on my feet most of the day) and felt something in my vagina. It felt like a freshly inserted, regular sized tampon. I went to the bathroom, washed my hands and reached down to feel something coming out of me. Something was crowning and breaching my labial gates. I reached back down and slowly pulled out whatever object was in me. It felt like a horror movie. I knew I had inserted nothing.
Based on the feeling of said object, I thought my cervix was falling out of my body. I started panicking a bit. Panicking intensified after pulling out this...sac.
It looked alien. It was this membrane sac, about the size of a pitted date when rolled up. Within the sac contained those "coffee grounds." I knew it was the Monsel's solution and likely I had shed the liquid bandage. That logical thought didn't stop me from freaking out and gently wrapping my alien sac Starbucks trash baby in a piece of toilet paper and further sealing this HPV caused abomination into a Ziploc bag. My plan was to run to the ER and show them the freak I had given birth to.
Problem is, I had just lost my is insurance and was in process of getting a new plan, so a costly trip to the ER, waiting for hours for them to likely tell me I'm a panicky idiot wasn't really in the cards. So what does any overly anxious patient do? Turn to Dr. Google of course! I found a couple of reddit posts from women who had experienced the same thing but there wasn't much information on what had just slithered out of me. I found one of those "pay $5 for any kind of advice: legal, medical etc! Chat with an expert today!" sites that seemed legit enough. I got in chat with a doc quickly after some AI pre-chat prompts and he confirmed my suspicions: it was the Monsel's solution that I had expelled from my body. I was told this wasn't unusual and so long as I don't have an excessive bleeding, fever, pain, blah blah, I should be fine.
And I was fine. If you experience this and don't have any accompanying complications, you should be fine too. It is weird when it happens though.
My results came back about 2 weeks later. What was initially thought to be LSIL turned out to be HSIL/CIN-III, and my OBGYN told me I needed a LEEP sooner than later. My appointment was scheduled for next month and I still didn't have insurance. These month long waits between appointments were anxiety ridden depression fests, fueled by junk food and further exacerbated by internet research. The LEEP posts on Reddit had me so concerned, I reached out to my doctor to see if I could be put under general anesthesia for my LEEP, instead of receiving local anesthesia. Women on here described LEEPs as painful and traumatic. Just awful stuff. If you're reading this you've likely read those too. They described leg shaking after the shots, crying, etc. My doctor left me a detailed voice message and responded to my concerns with: "most women tolerate it well but if you're uncomfortable we'll send you to the hospital and put you under monitored sedation/anesthesia." I was still worried but was willing to see how I felt after local anesthesia. I was pleased he was open to working with me and my comfort level.
Fast forward to Wednesday last week:
The night before my LEEP, I got maybe an hour of sleep. I couldn't turn my mind off. My heart started racing an hour before my procedure and I had weird heart palpitations/irregular heart beat. I showered to calm myself down and be clean for my appointment, took 600 mg of ibuprofen as instructed, then headed out. Got a little snack from Starbucks (croissant for before since I was walking to my doc and some madeleines for after to help offset some potential nausea). For my LEEP I wore a big comfy sweater, some "period" leggings (leggings that aren't too tight and I don't care if they get blood on them) and brought a pad with me just in case. They should provide one for you but I'd rather be prepared. Got to the office, checked in, did the pregnancy urine test, got called in quickly, went through the whole height/weight/med history routine. About 5 mins later I sat down in my OBGYN's office. He described the lab findings (CIN-III), detailed the procedure, the tools and supplies they would use, aftercare and answered any questions I had. He then led me into a procedure room (pretty sure it was the same one I had my bloody biopsy in). I got undressed from the waist down like a pap, sat in the procedure chair, draped a little paper blanket over my bare bits and waited. The doctor came in with his nurse and went to work.
They again cracked me open with a speculum, this time it was rubberized on some parts. This is so your vagina doesn't get fried from the electrical current, otherwise your pubes and vulva will look like Marv in Home Alone. They also slapped a little rubber pad on my thigh to "ground" me like I'm some kind heavy duty machinery. Colpo machine comes forward so the doc can zoom in on your cervix. He applied 2 types of solution if I recall correctly: the normal vinegar solution to highlight abnormal cells and an iodine solution to highlight normal cells. Someone can correct me if that's wrong. The solutions and their uses were the least of my concerns.
He then went in with 4 lidocaine injections to numb the area, total of about 1 ml of lido I think. He used a very small needle and upon insertion, it felt like a little pinch. Now, for those afraid of needles, it is a long ish needle but the actual poke is minimal. Although some women report that the inject was the worst part. That was not the case here but the visual can be a bit alarming. After the first injection, I didn't feel the other 3. I felt comfortable going forward with the procedure, and my doc kept checking in with me to make sure I was ok. I did feel an increase in my heart rate post-lidocaine, but it wasn't concerning. I wasn't sure if this was from the "holy shit he's about to start zapping" or as a side effect of the lidocaine. Regardless, my heart rate came back down to a reasonable level given the circumstances in a few minutes. I was actually so comfortable at this point, I managed to relax my asscheeks after they were clamped together like a vise grip from the moment my derriere hit the chair.
I'm not really sure what happened after the injections, I knew he was using the LEEP machine but I don't know how long that lasted and when the wound was being created vs. cauterized as I didn't feel anything except some mild cramping/discomfort. I didn't flinch like I did with the biopsy. When the doc was finished, he applied a little bit of Monsel's, described how much he removed, went over aftercare again, we said our thank yous and goodbyes. I got dressed and went on my way, snacking on my madeleines on my way home (I walked again lol). I felt well post-procedure and even stopped at Target to do some shopping and smell some summer collection candles. I did feel myself bleeding but when I got home and checked the pad, there was a minimal amount of blood. Some women here have reported a distinct burning smell during their LEEP, I didn't smell anything but I also have sinus issues soooo maybe I just didn't pick up on it? My appointment was at 9 a.m. and I was out by 9:32.
When I got home I had some orange juice, water then slept for about 8 to 9 hours. I did have little cry sessions here and there after my procedure. But I was also sleep deprived and know I tend to get emotional. Regardless, take some time off after a LEEP, stay home around your own germs if possible. Get some of your favorite snacks, a face mask and a Nintendo switch or something. This is a good time for some self-care and rest, girlies.
Friday, day after LEEP: no bleeding, minor cramping/discomfort.
Saturday: Usual morning pee met with some blood in the toilet paper. Nothing in my pad though. Throughout the day I slept on and off, I've been more tired than usual. My body and mind has gone through some shit so I'm not mad at myself for being sleepy. I did experience some heavier bleeding throughout the day that was mostly dark colored. The blood level was about the same if not less than what I'd experience with a period. No unusual smell. I did shed the liquid bandage. Did have some mild cramping at certain points during the day but not debilitating or worth taking ibuprofen over.
Sunday: Energy levels finally back up to something normal, don't feel as tired. Still bleeding dark red blood/brown discharge but it's minor. Ran some errands today, I figured gravity would cause me to bleed more but it's about the same as yesterday if not less.
If there's interest, I'll check in at maybe the 2 week and 4 week mark, or whenever I remember since this is my throwaway account.
Overall the LEEP was way better than the biopsy in my experience. Reddit had me freaking out. I know I'm lucky, and this post isn't to dismiss any terrible or painful experience other women have had. I want to share my 'positive' experience, since most of my mental state surrounding my diagnosis, fears, the upgrade from LSIL to HSIL, has been negative.
Oh and I did get insurance literally a week before my LEEP, thank God.
If you have any questions please feel free to ask them below!
TL;DR: -Colpo: easy -Biopsy: sucks. Most pain I've ever felt and felt nauseous/uneasy after. Ask your doctor if you can take ibuprofen prior to a biopsy. Monsel's solution/liquid bandaid came out in sac-like alien baby about 36 to 48 hours later. Was able to have intercourse 2-2.5 weeks post-biopsy. No insertion of anything for about 3 days after. -LEEP: easy-ish? 600 mg ibuprofen 1 hour before procedure. Anxiety inducing but once I was numbed with local anesthesia, I felt nothing except some mild cramping. The injection didn't hurt and caused no serious side effects. No smell. No excessive bleeding. Felt fine post-LEEP but did experience some bleeding. It's been less than a week so I'll update if anything spooky happens, if no updates then expect everything went fine. No intercourse/tampons/etc for 3 to 6 weeks.
Tips: -Prioritize self care throughout this experience especially. It'll help you stay calm and heal. -Dress comfy for procedures -Take some snacks and water to your appointments for post-procedure ick -Do your research. Knowledge is power even if it makes you uncomfortable. Youtube was a great resource for me, I like to see what's going to happen before it does. Just try not to get worked up like I did. -Ask questions. If a doctor makes you feel stupid, see another doctor if possible. -Have someone with you for support and to make sure you get home ok -If you experience fever, intense pain, soaking through pads, or notice any weird smell: GO TO A DOCTOR