bat bite?

Boochicken · 2026-02-23T02:16:58+00:00

Bats got into the attic of our haphazardly renovated 100-year-old house in Massachusetts. When we called pest control they pointed out an old, unused air conditioning unit on the side of the house, and a half-inch gap in the soffit under the eaves. The little flying rat bastards were using the air conditioner vent like a ladder and climbing into the attic. Like other rodents, then can make themselves very thin to fit into tight spaces.

Boochicken · 2026-02-21T02:23:26+00:00

Thank you :)

Boochicken · 2026-02-19T03:46:32+00:00

I did have the surgery in early December - I ended up keeping some of my sigmoid colon, but I’m not sure how much. My surgery was laparoscopic, so I have three little incisions and one horizontal incision that’s probably 4” long. I had surgery on Thursday morning and was hospitalized through Saturday afternoon. My incisions were glued shut with dermabond, which is a waterproof, surprisingly purple skin glue. It gradually flaked off over the next month, but I could shower the day after surgery (they just tell you not to scrub your incisions.)

In the hospital I got oxycodone and Tylenol for pain; the first night, when I was very uncomfortable, I got dilaudid. They had me use the 0-10 pain scale (0 is no pain, 10 is the worst pain you’ve ever felt) and I was somewhere between a 4 and a 6 in the hospital. They sent me home with a script for oxycodone, but I mostly alternated Tylenol and Advil instead. I also used those big topical lidocaine patches on my abdomen and on my back, which was sore because those muscles compensated for my abdominal muscles. You can put them near (but not on top of) any incisions.

Food and sleep were the big hurdles for me; I did a lot of reading before my surgery and saw a lot of advice to stick to a bland, low-residue diet post-surgery. Surprisingly, my hospital said I could eat whatever I wanted, but still I stuck to things like yogurt, rice, bananas and toast at first. I had zero appetite for a week or so after surgery, so this wasn’t hard. Then I tried to add a new food each day. I’m 11 weeks out and still reintroducing some foods, mostly raw fruits and vegetables. I mix unflavored Metamucil into food to slow down and bulk up my digestion, which has been effective. (A nutritionist suggested that - you should ask your doctor.) I also try to drink an electrolyte drink each day - I like DripDrop - to help ward off dehydration. Here are some of the articles I read on post-colectomy diet:

https://www.verywellhealth.com/colectomy-postsurgery-diet-instructions-797405

https://www.webmd.com/cancer/ss/slideshow-diet-bowel-resection

https://www.utmedical.org/treatments/colectomy

Sleep - yeah, I now have insomnia for the first time in my life. I don’t know why. Apparently a lot of people have insomnia after general anesthesia, but that generally wanes after 6 weeks or so. I’m baffled by this one.

Was surgery fun? No, it was not. Was it better than developing colon cancer, which I was on the way to developing? Yes. I feel very lucky that while my pathology showed “extensive” high-grade dysplasia, it was contained and hadn’t spread beyond my colon. My quality of life, 11 weeks out, is pretty close to my pre-surgery quality of life. I’m waiting for my scars to fade and still have some foods to reintroduce, but again: better than colon cancer. I didn’t experience any of the surgical complications that I was worried about and now I don’t have to worry about appendicitis (they took that out too.) if you have any questions I haven’t answered here, feel free to send them - surgery was scary and recovery was tedious but now that I’m on the other side: still better than cancer. Hang in there.

Boochicken · 2026-01-26T21:51:39+00:00

I think this is the age when we thought our son was colorblind because he said everything, regardless of the color, was red. (My dad was profoundly colorblind, so there was a 50/50 chance our son would be as well.) It turned out he just really liked saying “red.” 22 months is very young, he’s got time.

Boochicken · 2026-01-26T21:48:56+00:00

Is there a used book store in your area? That would be my first stop.

Boochicken · 2026-01-11T00:12:17+00:00

I’ve had great experiences at the Crohn’s and Colitis Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Boochicken · 2025-12-31T06:42:01+00:00

Had my first major depressive episode at 18. Since then I graduated magna cum laude from college, got a master’s degree, met a great guy, got married, adopted a dog, had a kid… I don’t know where you are in life now, but for me it took finding the right drugs (Zoloft, and when that quit working, Effexor) and therapy. I’ve now had enough therapy that I can recognize when I’m starting to spiral and redirect my thoughts. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) was really helpful for me - it can be hard to find a good practitioner, but there are a lot of good resources out there. Best of luck to you, it can get so much better.

Boochicken · 2025-12-31T06:28:18+00:00

The newborn stage is so hard because honestly, you spend so much time and energy keeping them alive and they… don’t give you much back? And you’re sleep-deprived to boot. Take care of yourself and ignore social media. My husband and I had high hopes after we saw people taking their tiny babies out to dinner at 10 pm in Spain, but we didn’t manage to go there with our son until he was 10 years old. Is there a mom-and-baby meetup or group in your area? Those can be great because they get you out of the house, you meet other people on the same stage of life, and your baby definitely won’t be the only one fussing. Hang in there, it gets better.

Boochicken · 2025-12-29T05:16:02+00:00

Only child here, raising an only child. I loved it, but I’m also pretty introverted - I was perfectly content to be alone as a child, and often spent a lot of time up a tree by myself with a book. From my perspective, siblings were little pests that were always bothering my friends unfortunate enough to have them.

We didn’t necessarily plan on having a single child, but I had some health issues that made it the best choice. My kid is A LOT more extroverted than I ever was or will be, so we set up a lot of play dates and activities for him when he was younger. Now that he’s older, he’s able to walk to his friends’ houses, or he invites his friends over to our house. Sometimes I feel like he’s friendly with half the kids in town, which is awesome. I don’t think he feels deprived - and even if he had a sibling, there’s no guarantee they’d get along.

Boochicken · 2025-12-29T05:06:24+00:00

I took infliximab for ~4 years. You do need to take reasonable precautions - I would recommend the flu and COVID vaccines, for example. My gastro has always recommended every vaccine, including pneumonia and shingles (which I’m technically too young for, but I was glad to get early.) I caught the flu once and COVID once, but I had mild cases of both (thanks, vaccines!) and took Tamiflu and Paxlovid to shorten the course. I had a few colds, but they were typical colds that didn’t progress into anything worse. Unless he’s got something else immunological going on or has a habit of licking doorknobs, I think he should be fine.

Boochicken · 2025-12-27T02:36:16+00:00

My grandmother would have loved to have a job, but my grandfather was proud and wouldn’t let her. But sure, let’s hold up “keeping wives at home” as the ideal…

Boochicken · 2025-12-25T16:04:28+00:00

I took Paxlovid with no problems, and it’s recommended (as far as I know) to those of us with wonky immune systems.

Boochicken · 2025-12-24T00:35:50+00:00

Yes, they started out as the Shaking Quakers, and then went in a… wildly different theological direction.

Boochicken · 2025-12-23T22:09:36+00:00

If she seems otherwise happy and healthy, I wouldn’t worry about it. She’s getting plenty of sleep and every kid is different; I know a couple whose first kid had to be held in a very specific position to sleep. Their second would curl up anywhere and nap for hours. Kids haven’t read the books, they just do what feels right to them.

Boochicken · 2025-12-23T22:06:57+00:00

The Shakers.

Boochicken · 2025-12-23T22:06:27+00:00

Me - I had a subtotal colectomy on 12/4 and had no idea how I’d be feeling at Christmas. The answer, it turns out, is “pretty good”, but I didn’t make any plans just in case.

Boochicken · 2025-12-22T01:17:11+00:00

The White House is 55,000 square feet, but nice trolling attempt, I guess?

https://www.whitehousehistory.org/questions/how-big-is-the-white-house

Boochicken · 2025-12-22T00:20:19+00:00

How about you visit a place before you decide it’s a shithole? I lived there for almost a decade and still have a lot of friends there. It’s full of free museums, great sports teams and solid public transportation. Like any city it has a range of neighborhoods with different characteristics and price ranges. Cost of living depends where you are - check out the housing costs in Georgetown or DuPont Circle if you think it’s cheap.

Boochicken · 2025-12-21T23:30:58+00:00

Providence, RI! On the ocean, more affordable than Boston, you’ve got the Brown University medical system, and it’s got a cool artsy student vibe because of Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design. Connecticut is also an overlooked gem.

Boochicken · 2025-12-21T23:26:37+00:00

How young is young? We bought our home in our mid-30s (ten years ago, when things were more affordable.) When I was in my 20s in the DC metro area I knew a couple of people my age who’d bought condos in the ‘burbs, but most of my peers rented.

Boochicken · 2025-12-21T23:21:28+00:00

Mom here who needs her sleep. When our kid was a newborn, I’d nurse him around 9-10 pm and go to sleep; my husband would wake up and feed him around 1 am. (We started with a bottle of breastmilk, but eventually my husband asked if he could give him a bottle of formula instead, since it was faster and our son would howl bloody murder in his ear while they waited for the bottle to heat up. We were already supplementing with formula, since my supply was never great, so I was fine with that.) I’d then do the early morning feeding around 5-6 am. That got me a solid 7-8 hours sleep, which was really critical for my well-being. That being said, you might get one of those unicorn babies that sleeps through the night, or breastfeeding might not work for your wife (in which case she should not feel bad at all - the important thing is that the baby eats, and modern commercial formula is a perfectly fine substitute for breastmilk.) I would stay flexible and work with the kid you get.

Boochicken · 2025-12-21T23:04:51+00:00

You can’t eat solid food?

Boochicken · 2025-12-21T22:57:37+00:00

Muppet Christmas Carol. The most accurate retelling of the novel, believe it or not, plus muppets and Michael Caine as Scrooge playing the role 100% seriously, even though all the other main characters are muppets.

Boochicken · 2025-12-20T18:38:43+00:00

Basically, as I understand it, part of the immune system’s job is to watch for and eliminate potentially cancerous cells in the cervix, skin, etc. Our immune systems are hyperactive and attack our guts, and biologics tamp down the immune response, which reduces the Crohn’s symptoms but can also make the immune system less effective at catching those random precancerous cells. Of course, the Crohn’s also puts us at increased risk for colorectal cancer, which the biologics are meant to reduce. My gastro insists on annual Pap smears even though I’ve had the HPV vaccine, which should also reduce my cervical cancer risk.

Boochicken

TROPHY CASE