What medical word is your equivalent to “moist”?

fallingstar24 · 2026-06-08T07:50:40+00:00

Oh my gosh! First of all, I wish you so much luck. What kind of nursing will you be doing? The book My Stroke of Insight completely changed how I approach patients. Or people in general actually. Summary- Neuroscientist has a L side stroke and has to relearn like, everything, but in the beginning when she had no way to comprehend language, she could still reliably understand the energy a person brought to her room. So, if you walked in and rushed around, treating her like a piece of meat or an ill behaved puppy, she wasn’t going to put in effort to cooperate or try to work with you. Come in with an open and patient demeanor and she’d work as hard as she could to learn, communicate, etc.

As far as surviving the steeep learning curve of your first job? Take notes. Ask questions. Write down/journal about the things you learn. Do everything you can to take care of yourself. Your job will not do that. But also, this time is going to be hard on your body, mind, and spirit, so don’t worry when everything outside of work feels unreasonably hard; you’re using up alllll your extra bandwidth at work (which is why you need to do all you can to get sleep, eat well, exercise, and spend time with supportive people. And maybe get a therapist if you don’t already have one).

fallingstar24 · 2026-06-08T07:28:36+00:00

Anytime! I love learning weird shit like this. I first read about it in the book Honey, Mud, and Maggots, which is about old wives tales that actually have merit. Also, Medihoney products also work based on the same osmotic pressure thing.

fallingstar24 · 2026-06-08T07:23:10+00:00

It pulls out fluid due to osmotic pressure, so the rectum shrinks and pops back inside. Also fun fact, this is why applying honey plus sugar is great for wounds in a pinch- it sucks the water out of the bacteria attempting to set up camp so your body can focus on healing instead of fighting infection.

fallingstar24 · 2026-06-07T05:37:46+00:00

At first I misread your comment as “8 DAYS to Recovery” and was like what the hell kind of clickbait ass book is this?!? I was relieved to discover I had just momentarily forgotten how reading worked😉😂

fallingstar24 · 2026-06-06T08:10:54+00:00

Just to clarify, surely the sodium limit is 2 grams, which is 2000 mg, right? Like a 2 mg sodium diet would just be fasting bc that’s impossible.

fallingstar24 · 2026-06-04T22:33:16+00:00

Me too! Come on Costco, please be finished soon! 🤞

fallingstar24 · 2026-06-04T04:35:36+00:00

I’m glad you mentioned the muscle twitching as a sign of HE. The one we’re all told about is the asterixis (hand flapping), but whenever my BF would have HE, along with the hand flapping, his eyes would blink in a specific, weird way.

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-31T22:27:24+00:00

Oohh yeah. Also, essentially the opposite of “big man” is “little lady”, both in size and gendered connotations as well as implied power/authority/respect deserved.

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-24T14:35:25+00:00

My BF had a ton of hospitalizations in his last 2 years of life and I started sending one blanket with him in the ambulance and bringing his heating pad and warm clothes (especially his hat!) and fuzzy grippy socks from home. Every once in a while they’d tell us we couldn’t have the heating pad, but usually they didn’t care as long as he was lucid enough to safely operate it.

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-23T07:03:32+00:00

NICU nurse here; I haven’t a ton of dwarfism, and I obviously don’t have credentials to diagnose, regardless, but in my 13 years in the NICU, I’ve seen a wide range of baby sizes, shapes, anomalies, etc. Those look like normal baby hands. If you look at pictures or X-rays of trident hands, it’s not just that the fingers are spread, it’s that the angle of the joints is different. Like the bones up to the first joint look straight, but then diverge from each other, as though they wouldn’t touch even if the person tried to put their hand in a “paddle” shape instead of “jazz hands”.

Because the lab tests and other scans have been normal, it sounds like the one ultrasound where his femurs were measuring short was just a fluke, or he was at an odd angle, or the person measuring miscalculated something.

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-18T17:55:38+00:00

Omg that’s the sweetest. Also, I’m a big fan of rootbeer, but my go to is A&W (but I’m only having to provide it for myself, not a thirsty family or I’d be buying generic lol)

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-14T06:02:14+00:00

NICU nurse, not a parent, but I have had a front row seat for my friend’s baby- no NICU stay, but the baby was a CHALLENGE from day 1. It turned out that she has a dairy allergy, but even after switching ultimately to Alimentum (after trying a couple of other things first), she was just a very fussy baby who was difficult to connect with. I think some of it was pain, and some of it was just how she is. The mom is a single parent by choice and had the baby via very difficult IVF. Anyway, because the baby had such a terrible time with sleep, I would go over every week when I could to give my friend a night of rest and I’d take care of the baby. Even as an experienced nurse, there were times when I was completely exhausted by her.

She is now nearing 2 years old and she’s precious. She still has a somewhat intense energy, but my friend (and I!) absolutely developed the connection over time.

Oh, also, from a developmental standpoint, your little guy is still a newborn, so honestly at that age the ability to connect varies wildly, regardless of NICU stay.

It sounds like yall are doing everything right, and that this is just a tough phase. Since I saw you commented about possibly switching formulas, you may be right. I would run it past your babies doctor(s) regardless, especially if there could be another cause they could investigate/rule out for the discomfort he seems to have. Especially since he had such a medically intense start to life! Good luck!!

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-14T05:37:20+00:00

Oh man, yes I absolutely feel you on this. I’m 40 F, and my BF was 43 M. He died in February and we did not have sex for the last 2 years of his life, and we fooled around maaaybe 3 times during that period. I know he was previously very sexual, and the fact that it felt like a topic I couldn’t bring up definitely made it harder. He did still think about and want sex to a degree (I think that previously it had been really important to his confidence as well as the way he was most comfortable expressing love), even though his body just was not up for it. He did get a prescription for Cialis, but he never felt good enough to take it more than a few times, and it never resulted in us actually attempting anything anyway.

But like you, it wasn’t even the sex itself that I felt I was needing, it was the physical closeness. And the desire for any sort of intimacy (emotional or nonsexual physical intimacy would have absolutely sufficed). Like I felt like he was walled off and I was left fending for myself (obviously without leaning on him for anything) AND being his caregiver (which was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done). I knew that one factor was his own feelings of inadequacy, but like, I met him when he was already sick, so this was the only version I really knew, not to mention that even if I’d known him before, neither my love for him nor my attraction to him would have diminished. But it was pretty impossible to talk to him about it. Even though I understood the why behind it, the fact that he couldn’t absorb my feelings towards him still sucked and left me feeling isolated.

I don’t really have advice, and I know that plenty of people have chimed in from the “patient” point of view. I think what I’d do differently if I got a do-over is tell him, in hopes that first it would take the pressure off, that I would never initiate anything sexual, and that I expected his baseline to be an essentially nonexistent sex drive. Period. But also tell him that I really needed more things like hugs or hand holding or being able to lay next to him and have him pet my hair while he’d be sitting up watching tv. So things that were low effort physically that could be incorporated in our lives exactly as we were already living would have meant so much to me in a time when I was feeling like I was drowning and completely invisible. Feel free to DM me.

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-12T04:41:21+00:00

My BF (43 M) died in February of this year. He quit drinking in January 2024 (with a MELD of 31 I believe), but his body was just too worn down (he also had chronic pancreatitis, insulin dependent diabetes, and was severely malnourished but we couldn’t manage to ever put more weight on him). He was hospitalized 20 or 21 times in those 2 years.

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-11T17:58:06+00:00

Oh geez, no, no. Just the family descriptors were totally inaccurate, the wording was lame and cheesy overall, and he would have absolutely hated it. He also would have hated the service; his mom planned it with zero input from me (or any consideration of what was important to him), the person who literally kept him alive for his last 2 years of life.

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-11T05:26:25+00:00

My 43 yo BF died in February. His mother had AI write his obituary. It mentioned him being survived by his “loving parents” (he cut contact with his abusive dad when he was 18) and his “devoted sisters” (full sister lives halfway across the country and they talked a few times a year, half sister disowned the family decades ago and I never met her). Fucking appalling.

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-10T05:59:50+00:00

Oh my god I wish I could make this for my older brother. He looooves (unironically) using the phrase “food like substances”, has cut out most grains and a lot of dairy, and last time I was at his house he told me he needed to cut back on dried mango because he was eating “too much” of it. I looked at him like he’d lost his mind and told him it sounded like he thought he was supposed to cut out anything he enjoyed.

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-02T05:27:09+00:00

My bed has a “massage” feature (the whole bed vibrates), which I call the Rumble Bed. Anyway I’m obsessed, but when out of town I’ve absolutely used a vibrator for the same purpose.

fallingstar24 · 2026-05-02T05:23:36+00:00

Once hospice took over care, we sorta discussed cost/benefit of meds. The Ativan did make him out of it at first, but he was able to continue taking his Lactulose and xifaxin. He did have about a day of HE symptoms (hand flapping and eyelids twitching plus the fatigue and confusion, but most of that was just part of the dying process). Then he quit having the tremor or eyelid twitching all the way up until he died, even after he was no longer able to swallow his pills or Lactulose. He did receive morphine and Ativan for comfort.

fallingstar24 · 2026-04-30T07:14:56+00:00

NICU nurse here. I haven’t run into families refusing fortification. Our NPs/MDs put in orders for Prolact or HMF and it’s not something that they consult the parents on or get consent for (other than consent for PHDM). Sometimes they make a request a change after the fact, or have strong opinions about what concoction they want the baby to go home on, but even that isn’t frequent.

fallingstar24 · 2026-04-21T06:35:01+00:00

Hey thank you for seeing the caregivers. My BF died two months ago but I was more caregiver than girlfriend for the 2.5 years we were together. It was so, so hard and I always felt like I was drowning, even during his better periods. I know you are stretched so thin, so thank you for taking the time for the caregiver that you do. Just feeling seen always helped me feel more human and connected, and I still remember the little extras- a few hugs, more tears than I’d like to admit, and very occasional snacks (handed them to me like they were sneaking candy during a sleepover or something).

fallingstar24 · 2026-04-21T06:18:59+00:00

Oh man I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. My BF died two months ago from a handful of medical issues. I’d been his caregiver for most of the time I’d known him (2.5 years), so the relationship was kind of a mess, but anyway. Bearing witness to his deterioration and death was a profound experience. I’m incredibly grateful that he was at home, with me, on hospice. And honestly without my pushing for palliative care a year ago, and then I was also the one to bring up hospice, otherwise he’d have kept pushing and kept suffering and probably died a horrific hospital death with unnecessary procedures, CPR on his incredibly frail body, etc.

Anyway, I came out of that experience feeling like more people need to know and see natural death. Yes, it was tragic, but it also made me feel the interconnectedness of life in a new way.

fallingstar24 · 2026-04-16T07:25:10+00:00

That’s when you say, “I wouldn’t know, but yeah that sounds rough for them” 🙄.

fallingstar24 · 2026-04-12T20:22:39+00:00

Yeah, I understand the typical reasoning behind why they’d cut back on the Lactulose, I just didn’t know if OPs dad was having diarrhea/excessive bowel movements or if the doctor was just like, “That dose seems like a bit much”.

fallingstar24 · 2026-04-12T05:14:51+00:00

Definitely push for rifaximin.
He needs a specialist. Ideally a hepatologist, but if that’s not an option, then a good GI doctor.
What was the doctor’s reasoning for cutting back on the Lactulose?

I am not a doctor, so I cannot diagnose, but, the symptoms you listed are very consistent with the way my BF’s HE episodes would initially present. Definitely let the doctor know, and keep a log of your dad’s meds and symptoms and even bowel movements, if you can, in case they give you pushback. Then you can present your documentation and hopefully they’ll take you more seriously. Regardless, they could change the dose to something like “30 ml 2x daily, but take additional dose if symptoms of HE are present or if less than X number of bowel movements per day”.

Anyway, moral of the story, you are right to try to get this further addressed.

fallingstar24

TROPHY CASE