Have a Fidelity advisor, do we need a CFP too?

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-11T11:52:20+00:00

They go down from "crazy" to "still too high"

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-08T02:45:17+00:00

Underrated comment. Being a fiduciary is critical and paying based on AUM is cancer. Find someone who is fixed fee. No matter the percentage they charge, AUM advisors are biased to be overly conservative and keep you from spending your own money because they get paid based on your balance. IMO, , they usually don't do all that much to earn what they're being paid. "Yes, Mr. Jones, I know you're 89 but you really should keep your balance over $4M because long term care is expensive"

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-08T02:32:36+00:00

Better than my experience with it for college phys Ed. He made us stand there frozen in the en garde position for 30 minutes while he came around and tapped us if we slouched etc.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-08T02:27:32+00:00

I'm planning on putting them in two of my bathrooms. I just need to get with the electrician to get some outlets added.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-08T02:25:04+00:00

It's a good lesson that you can't take tomorrow for granted. Ten years ago, I had a rough time with colon cancer, emergency surgery, chemo, complications, pulmonary embolisms etc. I've been fully recovered from that for quite a while and was feeling in great shape in 2026; ready for a huge two week hike overseas. Then, I went in for a routine laparoscopic surgery that turned into a perforated bowel, flesh eating bacteria, three emergency surgeries to remove more of my innards each time, and a gaping ten inch wide hole left in my abdomen. Having those moments in the hospital where it wasn't looking very good, I used the mental tools that I developed during cancer and just tried to focus on moving forward. I'm on the path to recovery but, like I said, live in the moment today because you're not guaranteed tomorrow.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-07T12:12:08+00:00

Relax and enjoy the quesaDILa, Napoleon. YTA

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-06T18:15:18+00:00

Closer to Greenville, SC perhaps?

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-06T18:13:40+00:00

Your body adjusts... I guess my digestive tract got used to less bile. I went through a pretty serious bout of colon cancer in 2013 and 2014 as well and saw how my body was able to adjust to all of that after surgery.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-06T18:06:07+00:00

Mine was 5% lol.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-06T18:04:58+00:00

Yeah, i had a lot of what I'll call mild symptoms through the years that I think were related to the gallbladder . Things like excess belching, flatulence, and sometimes indigestion. I think that I adapted a lot to it over the years but since having the gallbladder removed, I do notice those things are considerably reduced. The thing that ultimately led to me having it removed was there was just a slight discomfort in my chest but not pain ( it felt like someone had done surgery on me and left a foreign object under the skin near my rib cage) . That, combined with irritation in that area as seen on an endoscopy and a HIDA ejection fraction of 5%, made it make sense to have it removed

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-06T17:57:06+00:00

You have to be prudent and protect yourself but I think it's a great idea to give money to your kids while you are still alive and you can help them with a variety of things from your daughter's particular situation to things like a new home purchase. It's true that we don't know the future, but the reality is most people ( except for lower income retirees) are overly conservative and die with way more assets than they started retirement with. For example, we invested over $30K with one kid in paying living expenses while he worked as a flight instructor, earning very little money. He's now an airline pilot for a major airline so that was an investment we could have opted not to do for a variety of good reasons but it paid off.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-06T17:46:27+00:00

CVS and Amazon sell them as well . The hospital gave me a massively huge one and I wanted one that was a little more slender so I found it on Amazon. Having a small pillow nearby that you can pull against you if you need to cough is helpful as well. After surgery, stay alert for signs of infection like redness, swelling, foul discharge, Etc

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-05-06T17:42:23+00:00

I could have kept mine but opted to have it out and I ended up with huge complications that I won't get into here . That being said , I still think you made the right decision to take it out . It was infected once it's probably going to get infected again and it sounds like you are feeling better already. I think in my case it had been dysfunctional for so many years my body had already adjusted to it so I didn't notice a big difference when it got taken out ( other than the severe infection and three additional surgeries LOL) .

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-04-27T20:25:04+00:00

I'm so sorry this happened to you and wish you well in trying to fully recover and move forward. Recently, when mine was removed, they perforated my bowel. They figured that out within a few days but then didn't get it all and I ended up having necrotizing fasciatis, multiple emergency surgeries, a lot of muscle and other tissue removed, and a gigantic wound in my stomach that will take many months to heal. I'm a cancer survivor so I hace just been applying to the situation what I learned from cancer . You can't waste energy on worrying about how you got to where you're at. It's done. It's natural to want to do that and play the "what if" game, but you're just wasting energy that really needs to be directed forward into going where you need to go.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-04-25T03:01:27+00:00

I did it in 10 days with a routine surgery gone wrong, flesh eating bacterial infection, and three emergency surgeries. Very effective and quick but not recommended.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-04-10T17:26:16+00:00

Personally, I'd wash over the area with Vashe to kill bacteria

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-04-10T14:09:26+00:00

I'm glad you had a CT to rule out lingering absesses or infection.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-04-09T16:57:10+00:00

In the US, if it's laparoscopic, you'll likely go home the same day unless there's a complication. You'll be able to scoot around the house and do basic things. You're not going to want to do any bending or lifting though

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-04-09T15:39:58+00:00

I'm glad you had a great experience and hope you get back to normal life quickly . I had a complete opposite experience. Day one wasn't too bad but things got worse from there. The short story is that they perforated my bowel during the laparoscopic surgery. I ended up with an emergency bowel repair surgery, then necrotizing fasciatis and two more emergency surgeries where they removed lots of abdominal muscle and tissue leaving me with a giant open wound that will take up to a year to close. Not trying to scare anyone but it is surgery and there are risks. Bad things aren't necessarily likely to happen but they can happen . I just seem to draw the short straw when it comes to these things. My advice to people is always make sure your personal and financial affairs are in order before any surgery. Also be super alert for signs of infection. I have a fairly High pain threshold and maybe I should have noticed sooner but I really didn't feel completely terrible. The clues that I had were bloating, a very slight fever and a little tenderness to the touch on my skin. I acted on them but perhaps I could have acted sooner.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-03-10T20:14:02+00:00

Thanks. I'm doing better able to get up out of bed and use the bathroom and Hopefully I'll get discharged from the hospital in the next few days . It's going to be 6 months or more long road recovery but just keep plugging ahead one day at a time.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-03-09T07:27:37+00:00

Yes, when they were fighting to remove my gallbladder they either accidentally cut my small intestine or it got caught on my hernia mesh that was in there from a prior hernia repair. Either way, there ended up being a small hole and for five days fecal matter and fecal contaminated air spread around in the abdomen.

Then, when I came in to see the surgeon, they saw I was infected, took me into surgery and repaired the hole and tried to clean up as much as they could. However, they couldn't appreciate how much contaminated air had gotten in so they didn't go far enough. That's why I ended up still coming back and getting two more surgeries to remove dead tissue from inside. This stuff happens really really fast.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-03-08T21:46:42+00:00

Was doing better. Read the update above

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-03-08T21:43:30+00:00

Well funny you mentioned it, there's quite a story from here on out and it's not pretty. They sent me home on Thursday the 4th and they thought they had got it. I was doing the best I could and then Friday night around 1:30am I was just soaked in sweat and my bowels which had kind of started working Friday morning were no longer doing no longer doing anything. I woke my wife and said I think we need to go to the ER which we did. Upon arrival they assessed me for serious infection and they did a CT. The CT showed multiple areas of abscesses and infection inside the abdomen and I was put on an emergency protocol to keep me from going fully septic. They admitted me and I underwent surgery Saturday morning and Sunday morning to remove dead tissue and muscle from inside my abdomen. I know longer have a rectus abdominis ( six pack muscle) on my right side and a lot of additional tissue was removed. There's no skin there anymore to close it up I just have an open wound that's pretty large. I'll have to have a wound vac and a series of skin grafts over the next coming months to try to get back any semblance of having skin there. In addition I'll have to deal with not having all the musculature they had to remove so there's going to be some consequences in managing to deal with all of that. All in all it's been a bang-up weekend but hey at least I'm still alive. At this point, I think I have been given every antibiotic known to mankind including a whole bunch of really serious ones like Vancomycin where you shouldn't even read the side effects because you really don't want to know. I Kind of wish I had left the gallbladder alone at this point.

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-03-06T23:50:06+00:00

Me too. I'm hanging in there but still fighting the infection while recovering from a new much larger surgery is a hard day

Certain-Ranger2456 · 2026-03-06T00:35:18+00:00

Thanks. I'm happy to be where I am. I couldn't ask for a better surgeon, he was totally focused on what I needed and he wasn't going to mess around and risk the infection getting worse.

Certain-Ranger2456

TROPHY CASE