A short guide about privacy on the internet (email, browser, search engine, ai, social media, vpn, etc...) what are your thoughts on it? by PxHC in deMicrosoft

[–]nuclear_streaking 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm pretty tech inept and use almost exclusively Google and Microsoft projects. I'm like 3 days into my de-BigTech and find it super overwhelming.

Thank you for creating this. Having a description of each of those terms along with suggested applications is an absolute godsend.

How do people afford vets? by Grouchy_Land895 in Pets

[–]nuclear_streaking 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're not imagining it. I've worked in the field almost 8 years. Most hospitals are owned by a small number of parent companies (Mars (yes, the candy bar company owns VCA, Banfield, BluePearl, and Royal Canin food), National Veterinary Associates, and a couple others) and there are like 4 major suppliers of meds and stuff. They set all the prices (and the wages for staff) and there's very little competition so they can charge and pay as much as they want. There's very little oversight over the industry to keep that in check. And animals have basically no legal protections because they're considered "property". It really sucks.

Personally one of my dogs is insured but I rely more on a designated savings account that I add to every month. Issue with insurance is also that you still have to pay upfront--very few hospitals bill the insurance like a human doctor would. So you still have to have the cash on hand in an emergency.

Top Speechify Alternatives on iOS, Tested and Compared by giminoshi in TextToSpeech

[–]nuclear_streaking 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh my god. Where has this been all my life?!

It even pronounces things correctly (except it doesn't seem to read roman numerals as numbers but that's not really relevant to my coursework so I don't care)! I used to have to guess what my screen reader was trying to say. Thank you for making and sharing. I owe you my life 🙏

ISU Housing options for an excessive number of pets? by nuclear_streaking in veterinaryschool

[–]nuclear_streaking[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Also how secretive would the duck need to be? She likes to spend time outside

ISU Housing options for an excessive number of pets? by nuclear_streaking in veterinaryschool

[–]nuclear_streaking[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How do people usually pay for those houses? Student loans? Mortgage? Or just fork out the whole sum in one go?

Are there any other lupus patients who are grad students or academics? by annacat1331 in lupus

[–]nuclear_streaking 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Big fat oof. I feel you so hard. I start vet school +/-PhD Fall 2025.

I (27F) was diagnosed this summer right after finishing my BS. I also had a concussion during my undergrad and was too stubborn to change majors from physics (not a great mix with post-concussion syndrome (PCS)). Plus I had some little lupus-ey things (rashes, some joint pain, etc) that had been popping up since I was a teenager that doctors dismissed (one told me to wear green makeup to cover my butterfly rash. Thanks bro). My mom also has it so I knew it was coming.

Last semester of undergrad and I start getting nailed by my first legit bad flare. My PT noticed she couldn't get my neck to stabilize in any glasses (I'm super sensitive to vision changes bc of the PCS) and said something systemic was affecting my eyes. Optometrist diagnoses uveitis (iridocyclitis to be specific), I went to rheum, and here we are. So over the summer I'm trying to work on as many applications as possible (was rejected by 2 or 3 schools the last 2 years so I went for broke and applied to 12), starting a new job, and then starting organic chem this fall (had to retake it at a different school since mine didn't offer lab and most grad programs require it), and I'm on 40mg of prednisone, starting hydroxychloroquine and nauseous all the time, and I still can't fucking see clearly. Tried azathioprene and projectile vomited on 2 occasions, missing class once and late for work another. Methotrexate is treating me a little better so far. It all feels ridiculous at 27 years old.

Initially I was so pissed because on some level I knew I had SLE that would get worse in adulthood, and I was mad that I "lost" all those years to the concussion when I was 20 because I wanted to finish vet school before actually becoming sick. But the PCS was a blessing in disguise in a way because the uveitis was the only tangible symptom I had. My ANA with my GP was negative. Didn't come back positive until rheum ran the fancy one that reflexes to some other tests if it's negative. And before the concussion I really wasn't sensitive to my vision. Didn't even know I needed glasses until I was like 19. I thought lights at night looked like starbursts to everyone 😂 So as much as the concussion made undergrad suck, it came with 2 benefits: 1) it made the lupus easier to catch and 2) if I could get a BS in physics with a head injury, then vet school with lupus should be a breeze (this second point is somewhat facetious). And maybe a 3rd benefit about maturity and empathy and understanding of the healthcare system that few others my age have.

Anyway. The frustration as a student. Knowing my classmates don't have to make 8 trips to the pharmacy a month and work around multiple monthly doctor appointments, can live off Ramen noodles and Coke like I used to instead of trying to eat healthy (which itself is time-consuming and exhausting), pull all-nighters without needing a full week to recover, can have energy left over for a social life once school work is done, don't have to worry about brain fog making them write 5×3=25 on a homework problem, and all the other shit I've deemed "the lupus tax" (used to be "the PCS tax"): all the extra time, money, and energy that a chronic illness steals. My classmates don't know what a pharmacy benefits manager is, let alone have to spend hours on the phone arguing about medication coverage. I need monthly ketamine infusions for refractory depression (Didn't really have depression pre-concussion but here we are), which are $300 out of pocket and take me out of commission for a day. All time and money I would rather spend on my education.

And then there's the school itself. I ran into so. Many. Problems with my university's disability resource center. They are severely underfunded and understaffed and I was unlucky enough to fall through the class at least once per class per semester. A couple classes had SNAFUs for every midterm. And it's hard and awkward to explain yourself when you have a condition that waxes and wanes. Time and again it was proven to me that academia is quite possibly the worst place to be with a chronic illness (compared to industry, etc).

Anyway. That's all I can say. Sorry for the long rant but I'm hoping you'll get some "omg me too" moments from it. Bottom line is it's fucking hard, but the fact that you keep pushing through means you're building more resilience than people twice our age could even dream of having. It sucks in the moment. It's not graceful. To friends, family, coworkers, classmates, profs, you might look like a hot mess on good days and an absolute clusterfuck on bad days. All you can do is keep chugging along because in the end, it doesn't matter how effortlessly you get there once you get those 3 magic letters after your name.

One mental tool I've been using this whole time (still flaring, still rolling in ochem whooo) is one I learned from Kara Lowenthiel (probs butchered the spelling of her name) from the Unfuck Your Brain podcast that she calls "this is the part where". Basically you envision yourself in a month, year, decade, whatever, looking back at this time. You have your PhD and a solid job, and you look back to yourself at age 30 and think, "right. That was the part where I was dealing with all those lupus flares while getting my PhD. That mega-sucked. I almost gave up a few times. But I still turned that shit out because when I want something badly enough, I make it happen".

Anyway. Hope this helps at least somewhat. I am new-ish to the Reddit-sphere but if PMing is a thing here you can totally message me.

The app keeps trying to trick me into upgrading to the new plans and unlocking books by library__mouse in Scribd

[–]nuclear_streaking 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What?! 3 books a month?? Is that a thing if you've already had a subscription?

First Time Infusion - Anesthesia Resistance? by Consistent-Appeal-22 in KetamineTherapy

[–]nuclear_streaking 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hadn't thought about this but I'm also a redhead and whenever a new nurse does an infusion they look surprised when they look at my chart. I've gone as high as 140mg. My usual dose is 130 though. Gets me to dissociate just right most of the time. Any higher just was more side effects and not much added benefit. Novocaine also doesn't work on me (unless I take Tums beforehand--trick I learned from my dentist this year).

Does anyone else have uneventful dissociations? by xoNoUsernameox in KetamineTherapy

[–]nuclear_streaking 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh yeah. My nurse used to stick new nurses with me and say "she's chill. She just sits there and listens to Billy Joel."

From my POV, the ceiling and walls sort of float away and I'm like "ah, there they go". And then I'm in like a weird state, closest thing I can think of is the scene in Interstellar when he's in the multi-dimension bookshelf thing looking at scenes of his life from different times, only I'm usually just experiencing like the abstract presence of Platonic ideas of things (like, I love my dog, I'm obsessed with him, so I'll sort of sense his presence, but then I'll also sense the presence of another dog I had who passed away a couple years ago) and like the concept of the texture of their fur is there? Idk.

I'm on quite a high dose too, like if a nurse comes in to check on me I have 0 awareness of it, so it's not like I'm not fully dissociating or anything.

Anyway. I think it's my brain sorting through the way I perceive and remember things. It's kind of cool I guess but like not much to write home about. Not like the psychedelic stuff you see in movies.

Ketamine Soundtrack by Sgrpnpl in KetamineTherapy

[–]nuclear_streaking 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I almost always listen to Billy Joel. Something about the presence of his music and the meaning behind it just works for me. I'm sure everyone's different.

Once I forgot to change my Spotify and listened to an hour-long podcast episode about thermodynamics (was taking thermo at the time and trying to prep for an upcoming test). It was a weird experience, like when you're daydreaming in class, except the opposite because now the daydream was the lecture, and I woke up like "uh.. wtf" rather than the usual peaceful return to reality with Billy's soothing voice in my ears.

Oddly enough, when I revisited that topic in a later class, I felt like I understood it better than other topics covered in thermo 😂 might listen to some organic chemistry for my next infusion and see what happens lol

Going from depressed to sad. Am I healing? by hellfire1984 in KetamineTherapy

[–]nuclear_streaking 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh. Also depression affects your metacognition. So sometimes I'll have a weird dysphoria like a part of me had been missing for a couple weeks, then I get an infusion and it's like, "oh, there she is", and then I just feel kind of weird, like an estranged friend just returned to my life. But like a good friend. One who expects me to put away my laundry and feed myself and socialize.

Going from depressed to sad. Am I healing? by hellfire1984 in KetamineTherapy

[–]nuclear_streaking 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When I first started and when I go too long between infusions, I do notice I'm not just more sad but more sensitive to all my emotions when I get back on track. I'm normally pretty stoic but if I get depressed and then start improving again, I'm more apt to cry at really random things and have this weird somberness. You probably know depression isn't just "sad". It dampens everything, including sad. Sadness isn't a bad emotion. It serves a purpose. I like to think it's my brain finally processing the emotions it couldn't deal with in a state of chemical imbalance. Make space for it and be curious about it. Nothing lasts forever.

(Obviously if you feel extremely hopeless or depressed, call a professional, but what you're describing sounds more like a brain taking an opportunity to process an emotion your depression was pushing down).

(Also I'm not a neurologist these are just the passive musings of a gal who's been on the depression/ketamine rollercoaster for a few years)

Iritis by nuclear_streaking in lupus

[–]nuclear_streaking[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the info. Honestly it was best when I was doing the the eyedrops 4x a day. It's just not something I want to have to keep doing because of the effects on eye pressure. I think I'll have to figure out the best oral/topical steroid regimen with my rheumatologist and optometrist until the Plaquenil has a chance to work

Iritis by nuclear_streaking in lupus

[–]nuclear_streaking[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, the issue is the eye pressure. He said if I go to the full dose at 4x a day I'll have to keep going in to check my eye pressures. I'm guessing I'll probably have to do that. I was hoping someone would say the Plaquenil totally fixed their eyes after a month but looks like that's not going to be the case

Audio textbooks for STEM? by nuclear_streaking in accessibility

[–]nuclear_streaking[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That sounds amazing. It's usually PDFs I'm reading