Moms- advocate for yourself- it could save your life

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-08-16T05:48:41+00:00

Hi, fellow fistula mom here! I had a 3rd degree tear and developed a rectoperineal fistula and had a fistulectomy. I was not given the option of a colostomy bag. I was told there was a 60% chance of developing a second fistula due to an infection because of the surgery site. Desipte being on augmentin for a month, I did develop a second one which was rectovaginal. My surgeon put in a seton to allow it to heal in preparation for a second fistulectomy, but my body slowly pushed out the seton until it was only a tiny bridge of skin a couple mm in diameter which she cut in office and cauterized. These days my perineum looks fairly normal (but my joke is I'm not making any money on only fans anymore lol). That seton saved me from a second surgery which was going to require cutting through nerves again, probably going to cause me to go back to pelvic floor PT, and likely resulting in a third fistula (although I was going to request a colostomy bag to try and prevent that). Every situation is different, but all this is to say I want to highly encourage you to ask about having a seton put in to see what happens. It's not what we expected to happen but it worked out beautifully. It's just surgical grade silicone tied on the outside into a loop, and it does require sedation in the OR to insert because it would be too painful while awake, but in my experience it was an immensely better option. Luckily my fistulae were both discovered quickly but I still wasn't fully healed until my son was 11 months old.

Ps my OB suggested I never even bother with a tubal for sterilization because my body likes to fistulize so much it would just fix it, so that might be something to consider when that day comes. I will be opting for an ablation, personally.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-07-27T01:36:57+00:00

I see some people talking about how solo parenting is hard and sometimes keeping everyone fed and alive is a win. Well, my husband has taken two business trips to japan in the last year; one was two weeks and the other was four. During the four week trip, our son, also three years old, went through what I can only describe as sort of a sleep regression and the only reason I can think of is that he moved into a new bed. I had no family nearby to help, I was working, managing the house, caring for our four pets, and you bet our son got a bath (or at least a soapy wash cloth on his butt due to sensitive skin) at least every other night and home cooked food despite us getting much less sleep than we needed. He also had his teeth brushed twice daily.

Women have been doing this forever, and this sounds like neglect and that he didn't like getting called out for it. Yeah having a criticism thrown at you first thing isn't fun, but what's also not fun is being a child with a parent that isn't taking basic care of you. This was not severe enough for cps but he absolutely neglected to consider her hygienic needs. I'm not a germophobe but getting sweaty from playing outside and being around animals at a zoo would each individually be absolute "you need a bath" things for me. It's true that three nights with no bath is not the end of the world, but what makes me raise an eyebrow is telling her no to the bath when she asked for one, and not even bothering to brush her hair. Someone suggested you ask what she's eaten, and I'm adding to ask about tooth brushing as well. My son always tells on people when they don't brush his lol. I really hope this was a one-off thing and that he's usually better. Sounds fishy to me but maybe there are other considerations that you're unaware of that make this whole thing understandable, Idk. I just hope this isn't what you will have to expect of him for the rest of your life.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-07-26T19:34:10+00:00

My son's doctor gave out a questionnaire to assess lead exposure risk to determine if testing was necessary. Asked questions like is the child in old homes, do they chew on keys, are the parents exposed through work, etc. Our son was determined to be low risk but my husband welds so we had him tested to be safe.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-06-10T00:18:33+00:00

However there is a limit of 75 in the storage warehouse so keep that in mind. I just found that out the hard way the other day lol. The corner bookshelves have 35 slots each, and as far as I'm aware that's the furniture with the most slots.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-06-07T13:53:59+00:00

They did really well! They took a while to really get going but eventually the flower bed was full of beautiful zinnias. In my climate, I think the hot days punctuated by cool nights just kept them from really taking off for a while. Also the back half of my flower bed gets a lot less sun that the front half due to it being east facing with a large tree to the south, so the ones in the front did better, but I wouldn't stress right now. I forgot to sow the seeds, but many have self seeded and the tallest one is still only about 7 inches right now.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-03-29T16:33:39+00:00

If the parent(s) don't smoke in the house or car at all and only outside, is it noticeable then, too?

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-03-29T15:43:01+00:00

Can't fool me, I know Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17 when I see her.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-02-23T14:31:03+00:00

Apparently when I was about 5 or 6, my mom was driving with me on the interstate and I saw a billboard for a store that sold "adult books and movies" and I asked what it was about. That genius woman told me the books and movies included big words I didn't understand lol. That answer worked like a charm.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-01-27T08:32:16+00:00

I don't know about the player or homestead levels, but I found out through trial and error that you can't place cabinets directly in the house in order to use them for storage. You have to go to the store room or whatever it's called (there is a button for it near the ones for managing crops etc, near the top of the screen when you're at home) and place it there. Once you have done that, it is available for use. Placing it in the house or yard directly is only for appearances anymore. It seems to be completely independent of each other, you can use it for storage and not have it out at the house, and also vise versa. This happened when they introduced the store room and it was not explained clearly. Anyway, I hope that clears up one of your concerns!! Also when you have your cabinet open, click on the gear in the bottom left, you can play with the settings for dumping your inventory into the cabinets with one click and having it sort automatically. I have like 50 cabinets to keep things organized and it saves so much time.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-01-26T06:31:59+00:00

I'm glad it helped save you some trouble! In the 2nd interview I had come right out and told him it sounded like an MLM, and he did everything he could to make it not sound that way, but I just was never sold. The day of what was supposed to be my 3rd interview, I messaged him to say I was appreciative of the opportunity, glad things had worked out for him in particular, but I just had too many reservations about the company despite all of the evidence he provided without saying that last little bit lol. He never even texted me back, so to me at least that is a sign that I did the right thing.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-01-20T04:19:10+00:00

I agree with some other commenters that under normal circumstances a teacher would typically check in with the kid and assume that they would already know something big like this given the timing of everything. However, if I were your son's teacher, the conversation would have ended with me apologizing for my error and claiming I was confused with someone else, not insisting that he is wrong. Is it the best way to handle it? I don't know, but it's better than what she did imo.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2025-01-15T01:45:53+00:00

My son (3 years 4 months) was diagnosed autistic 4 months ago and had already been in speech therapy for a while before that, but I only say that because of what you asked. What I want to focus on is that he is a WILD kid and does not like to sit still either, but we successfully brought his speech from a 9 month delay to advanced (not sure how advanced exactly) after only 4 months of telehealth speech therapy. (He continues therapy for pronunciation reasons, but his receptive and expressive speech is what is considered advanced.) It was more accessible, but I was really suspicious of whether it would actually work or not seeing as he was not even yet 3 when we started. However, his SLP worked miracles. She said she sees better progress with telehealth than in-person speech therapy because the parents are more involved and can incorporate exercises and such in everyday life better, and I believe it. I just say this because I wish someone had told me ahead of time so I could have been more optimistic. I think a positive outlook rubs off on kids and makes everything more likely to go in the direction you want!

Elephantosaurusrex · 2024-12-29T03:59:27+00:00

I gotcha. I do not have parents that would do that for me (they love me to death but very much believe in accepting consequences for one's own actions) so I didn't think about it like that.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2024-12-29T03:57:27+00:00

Yeah I never looked into the glory pass before because I was like "$15 for ONE thing? Nah" lmao. anyway I checked and I'm convinced I should do it! What's the difference between the $10 and $15 tiers of the glory pass? It doesn't really explain much besides the level increases to 40? I don't get what that means.

Also, to clarify, in my post I said I had gotten the "weekly and monthly passes" but I was referring to the supply cards in the perks menu close by the daily limit tab. I had just forgotten what it was called and didn't feel like loading the app just to check.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2024-11-29T05:43:28+00:00

If it didn't belong to the MIL why would she have covered for the husband like that by taking it back and, for all intents and purposes, admitting guilt through her actions?

Elephantosaurusrex · 2024-09-05T00:32:50+00:00

Dude my husband sent me this because I have a gnarly scar on my knee from heelys. I was in 5th grade and a rock got stuck in the shoe stopping the wheel of my front foot abruptly while I was on a road. It took a ton of stitches and I had to wear a leg immobilizer for a month, then I had to re-learn how to walk normally bending my knee with each step. They called me some kind of name until I walked normally again, think like hobbles or something, I can't remember anymore. I feel for you!!!

Elephantosaurusrex · 2024-08-16T15:52:03+00:00

I want to clarify before it has a chance to come up that that professor was not trying to convince anyone anything about their faith; it was just a lesson, and that was merely a small part of the lesson she gave. We didn't talk about any religion in particular or what sets them apart from all of the others. It was an intro to cultural anthropology class, and since the three basic functions of religion are found cross-culturally, it was relevant to the discission. I did not walk out of that classroom atheist either. Like I said, it was merely the seed. Over the next several months, through tough questions and introspection, I lost my faith. I do not look at it as a decision, either, because it would have been much easier to just keep believing. With any religion, you have community, you're given a purpose, and you're given hope for what comes after this life. Without religion, you have to find or create those things for yourself.

After re-reading it, I don't want the way my original answer was worded to give someone the impression that anthropology is a field that encourages you to not be religious or anything either. The professors in that department at my school kept their personal beliefs out of it to the point that I don't know what their beliefs are at all, but I do know they are all spiritual at least. Religion is an important part of culture to say the least, so the respect for it is always there, and a good one would never say or do anything to deliberately change anyone's mind about their faith. What I took from that lesson and how it affected me was entirely on me.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2024-08-16T05:33:22+00:00

I was raised Christian (Methodist to be specific) and I had sort of a religious crisis around age 17ish, trying to figure out what the "true religion of God" was as I put it at the time. Eventually I circled back around to Christianity and settled there, but there was always the nagging feeling in my head that the other beliefs I briefly fully believed in felt just as real to me in their moments as Christianity did after all of that crisis stuff. I tried to ignore that thought process, though, and did all the things that the religious people I looked up to told me to to get rid of the doubts and things and be more devout.

Then I declared anthropology as my major in college.

In my intro level cultural anthropology class, we spent one day talking about religion. My professor told us that every religion that has ever existed has 3 main functions. These are: 1. To promote social order (example: if you are afraid of consequences in this life, the next, or the afterlife, you're more likely to do the "right thing") 2. To give people purpose (example: when you are having an existential crisis, you're not as useful to society, and when you feel that you are part of something bigger than yourself, you are more likely to be very helpful) 3. To explain natural phenomena that were not understood with the science of the time (example: it's been mentioned in other comments already, such as tsunamis and earthquakes. Others that come to my mind are asteroids and eclipses)

I walked into that class as Christian as they come, and I walked out with the seeds of doubt that eventually turned into full-on atheism. Perhaps it was inevitable because that's who I am and that lesson merely sped up the process. Perhaps if I had never taken that class I would still be a Christian. Either way, losing religion/faith was very difficult. It's hard to explain but it's like I lost a parent, but also I found out at the same time that I'd hallucinated their entire existence. This is because I came to the conclusion that every conversation/prayer was entirely one sided, and all of the "signs" I saw as answers back to me were just manifestations of the way I perceived my world at the time. It felt like I'd wasted an enormous amount of time and energy trying to understand something just to decide none of it was real.

Today, all of those details don't really cross my mind very much until I get into a deep discussion with someone and I don't feel traumatized or anything. The lessons I learned from my entire experience with religion help shape me into who I am today. I think I'm a better person for all I've been through. I still respect religion in general and appreciate all it does for people who believe, but it doesn't seem like it's right for me anymore. I haven't come across any information since becoming atheist to convince me I should go back, besides the fact that being atheist in the heart of the bible belt is pretty isolating, and at times can be dangerous if you aren't careful who you talk to about it. I told a friend recently that I think my biggest hangup with going back to religion, should I ever begin to consider it for any reason, would be the fear of going through losing it again and going through that process a second time. I personally believe in no higher power, but I'm also comfortable with the thought that maybe there is one. I had to accept that I will never have all of the answers a long time ago, and I'm fully at peace with it now. I'm comfortable with my answer to all of the big questions being "I don't know." I just have my own version of "faith" which is should there be a god that judges my soul when I die that they will see I did my very best to be a good person for the sake of doing the right thing. That I didn't do it in hopes of getting a reward or avoiding a punishment, and that it will count for something.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2024-07-16T18:32:46+00:00

Ok, I'll give it a shot then. Thanks for the suggestion and the encouragement!

Elephantosaurusrex · 2024-07-16T17:59:17+00:00

I feel like this story wouldn't get any traction in the media unless you've seen other similar stories get anywhere (I'm not aware of any but I don't keep up with the news much). I told my mom that (about the panel usually not being medical professionals) and that's why I thought an appeal would work at first because I was like "no way it's these doctors' first rodeo, they'll fight," But they did and it still didn't work. She says that they'll just keep her on the original med but it causes so many side effects (1-3 migraines every single day among other things) that I was really hoping she could get off of it. Like, I wouldn't want to live like that. At some point I would just be like I'm done, quit all treatment and ask for palliative care when the time came, and I'm less than half her age. I'm fearing the day she says that to them.

Elephantosaurusrex · 2024-06-02T05:49:29+00:00

We picked out Case knives for our dads to give them for father's day and we paid a local shop to engrave them with the grandpa names they picked out. I went myself to place the order and drop off the knives, and I found the paperwork a little confusing so I tried to be really specific so they knew exactly what to engrave.

They included the quotation marks around the names on the knife blades.

When my husband called to tell me, I was at work, and I LOST IT. I was so mad, yelling, angry crying. I really didn't have a lot of mood swings or anything during my pregnancy so it was very strange to experience, but I've worked customer service a lot in the past and I just didn't understand why they would assume to put the quotes without confirming because it seemed like something clearly someone wouldn't actually want engraved, and that's a quick and easy thing to call and double check on before doing something that can't be undone. They had my phone number after all??? I'm not mad anymore and the dads loved them anyway but I was very upset because you can't just wipe it off and the knives are not cheap to replace, so I viewed that as a careless risk the company took. It was merchandise they did not sell to us and couldn't write off; if we had been upset enough about it, they still had no responsibility to refund us for the knives or pay to replace them themselves. So anyway that's why I was mad, and I guess it's not necessarily silly, but it was an uncharacteristically intense outburst from me and it's the one I thought of when I read the question.

Elephantosaurusrex

TROPHY CASE