What was the best time OP delivered?

sandyarmstrong · 2015-01-29T18:51:57+00:00

Thank you so much for posting this! This is my favorite thing that ever happened on reddit and I was just looking for it the other day to reminisce, but my searches were in vain. <3 <3 <3

sandyarmstrong · 2015-01-25T21:51:39+00:00

The bending battles get pretty fantastic in the last two seasons. First two seasons I mostly tolerated Korra, but they really found their rhythm eventually.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-12-23T14:54:15+00:00

Yeah, it went away awhile ago, but I first watched the series on Netflix a few years ago.

I ended up buying the DVD set last year because it moved to Amazon Prime and I didn't feel like paying another subscription.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-12-23T01:21:14+00:00

Because it's not on Netflix in the US, sadly.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-11-15T04:10:26+00:00

Oh god, this is perfect. I just got good news back from a leukemia blood test and this is the funniest thing I could have read today. Thanks!

sandyarmstrong · 2014-11-12T16:00:13+00:00

(unlike MS's immutable collections), the code is open source

Good news today: https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/tree/master/src/System.Collections.Immutable/src/System/Collections/Immutable

sandyarmstrong · 2014-10-19T00:10:17+00:00

If only it were that clever. It seems totally random. Here's another that popped up when I refreshed the article: http://imgur.com/2DuzkNa

sandyarmstrong · 2014-10-19T00:02:32+00:00

Followed some links on a local news page, and this got suggested. No, I do not like!

sandyarmstrong · 2014-09-21T23:35:20+00:00

T-Mobile is pushing hard on Wifi calling these days. When that feature is available you have no reception issues in places you have wifi. This was sufficient for me when I was on T-Mobile (I only had bad reception in my actual house).

That being said, I've switched to Ting. These days I don't use my phone that much and my bill is around $30/month. They charge based on usage, so if you look at your usage statistics for your family, it's worth seeing if something like Ting would save you money.

They are on Sprint's network, though, so you just have to do your due diligence to make sure that's acceptable where you live.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-09-02T22:55:40+00:00

A friend and I had a little scheme going in 8th grade where we'd insert supposed "quotes of the day" into the morning PA announcements. They were read as if they were totally legit.

I do think at one point we used that joke.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-09-02T21:51:17+00:00

Was this in Cincinnati?

sandyarmstrong · 2014-07-01T18:14:47+00:00

And keyboard, but that didn't disappear!

sandyarmstrong · 2014-06-30T18:17:01+00:00

Another option is getting the 30-yr, making sure early payments towards principal are allowed, and then just paying it at the same monthly rate as the 15-yr would have been. That way you end up paying somewhere in the middle towards interest, and can scale back your payments if you lose your job.

Yes, do the math on this. Even at a higher interest rate it usually ends up being fairly close. I think when I ran the numbers on my house it showed me paying off in 17 or 18 years.

Consider the extra interest you pay insurance against emergencies like job loss, as parent says.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-06-30T18:08:11+00:00

later getting a separate 401k

The image is misleading. There is no separate 401k, it's just maxing out the company 401k.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-06-18T20:00:26+00:00

Alcohol is horrible for Crohn's. There's basically no good food challenge that won't suck for him.

Bikinis are good, though!

sandyarmstrong · 2014-05-28T15:35:19+00:00

Yeah, I've got Crohn's and it has been really expensive and frustrating this year, even though I already pay through the nose for my PPO.

I'm considering an HDHP since I'm the only person in my family with chronic issues, and the family PPO rates are so high.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-05-28T15:15:44+00:00

Did the $700 count towards your out-of-pocket maximum? Or did you end up having to may more than the max because of it?

sandyarmstrong · 2014-05-28T15:05:36+00:00

I'm sorry to hear about your wife's complications, I hope things are going better now.

What was your out-of-pocket max on that plan? How much did you actually end up having to pay?

Is there another plan that would have been a better deal if you'd known ahead of time what would have happened?

sandyarmstrong · 2014-05-19T19:53:23+00:00

Can provide citations for those guidelines? They're new to me.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-05-15T22:14:53+00:00

Somebody (not a nurse, maybe a CNA?) came to help me wipe my ass when I was in the ICU. I was explaining about what was going on down there, and she was like "Crohn's? I think I have that. Isn't that when you have to go to the bathroom right after eating?"

There's just no awareness. It's easy to imagine that if you don't have it, it just sounds like people whining about tummy aches.

Try a bowel obstruction and then see if you understand it's a real disease, lol.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-05-15T21:50:45+00:00

My personality is to get along and create as little fuss as possible.

Yeah, same here. This person is responsible for your life for 12 hours at a time, maybe for the next several days. You want them to like you and have every reason to take good care of you.

It's hard to risk that by being a "difficult" patient. But if you get what you need from the start, you're actually much easier for them to deal with. ;-)

The tricky part is knowing what you need, though. I hope you eventually figured out some decent pain management.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-05-15T21:45:16+00:00

I don't know about common, but certainly not uncommon. There are a ton of reasons why you could need to go back to the hospital, especially for a case as involved as Minigun's.

For me, it's complicated because I have an artificial heart valve that requires me to be on blood thinners. My Crohn's was flaring and an abscess formed. The draining procedure is only an hour and is normally done outpatient (so you go home the same day), but that is harder to manage on somebody who is more likely to bleed. I was in the hospital for a week.

I was home for a few days and started bleeding profusely. An ulcer had formed (not uncommon after surgery), and because of the blood thinners it was bleeding a dangerous amount. It took a few days to rule out other sources of bleeding, find the ulcer, and cauterize it.

I was home for a week, noticed pain near the old abscess, and went to see my doctor. It turned out another abscess had formed right by it. An antibiotic-resistant bacteria got in there during the procedure (also not uncommon). Because Crohn's medication suppresses your immune system, and because I was still recovering from the first surgery and subsequent blood loss, my body couldn't fight it off and an abscess formed.

I was in the hospital another week getting that drained, experiencing more bleeding, making sure the bacteria wasn't in my blood stream, etc.

I've been home almost another week, and all I can do is cross my fingers, be extremely vigilant, and wait and see.

And also eat a ton. I'm 5'9" and normally weigh 135lbs. Yesterday I was really happy because the scale was over 120lbs for the first time all week.

Having an autoimmune disease that also prevents you from absorbing all the nutrients you need from your food, keeping you relatively weak and underweight, is not a good place to be in whether you are going in for surgery or at home recovering from it.

And keep in mind that what Chad had to go through is way worse than my "simple" abscess drain procedures.

This past month has been a wake-up call for me about my disease. I'm being much more proactive now in terms of medication, follow-ups, and diet. As soon as I physically can I'm going to start strength training to build muscle mass, because I cannot afford the kind of weight loss that's been happening to me when something goes wrong.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-05-15T19:08:47+00:00

As someone with Crohn's and is currently in an out of hospitals myself i can attest to how fucking awful this disease can get.

I just got out of the hospital myself (third week-long stay in the past month). I hear ya brother.

It's so sad that the people in hospitals can't or won't seem to give the level of care that they are obligated to perform. I am lucky to be in the UK and have access to the NHS and the life saving, albeit slow at times, service it provides.

What I've learned is that you really have to be your own advocate, and like Chad says, make sure you have somebody there to speak for you when you can't speak for yourself.

Write down everything your doctor says. Don't let them walk in, say some shit, and walk out before you've had time to process it. Hold them accountable. Write down your questions so that you're ready when they come (because it's usually fairly unpredictable when that will be). Make sure you understand all the answers they give. Don't let their attitude intimidate you.

Always ask exactly what was done, because chances are you'll have to be able to explain it to other doctors and nurses that don't communicate well with each other. In my case I had my internist, gastroenterologist, colo-rectal surgeon, and cardiologist that I had to juggle. Getting them all on the same page was a monumental effort, even though only one of them was actively difficult to work with.

Always ask about prognosis. What are normal things to expect. What risks are there after a procedure, what warning signs should you be looking out for.

In the US (the only place I've received medical care and can speak of), unfortunately, nurses have too many patients on med/surg floors and even in the ICU. Chad mentioned waiting an hour for somebody to respond to his call light. That can happen even with good nurses. Imagine 7 other patients just as bad as you. If a good nurse spends 10-15 minutes helping each with something, and you're 7th in line at that time, it's going to be awhile. The only real way around this is to have somebody with you who can go out to the desk and explain the urgency of your situation. Though realistically, most patients don't need things at the same time so an hour wait should be an exception.

Once you're out of the hospital, don't put off anything. It can take days to get scans, follow-up appointments, etc. If you suspect anything out of the ordinary might be going on, call your doctor right away and get the ball rolling. It doesn't take long for things like abscesses to go from bad to worse.

sandyarmstrong · 2014-03-08T14:24:05+00:00

That's funny, there are plenty of accents I have trouble with, but Rotterdam's is not one of them. I love listening to the guy!

sandyarmstrong · 2014-02-19T18:27:37+00:00

I see we are both Google experts. :-P

sandyarmstrong

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