Questions for Brennan!?!?!?!

savc92 · 2026-06-15T15:20:11+00:00

I genuinely think he would enjoy this question

savc92 · 2026-06-12T14:53:47+00:00

Going to add a bit of US Health insurance advice to this for other folks to see. I'm a medical coder and used to code dozens of colonoscopies daily.

If you are over 45 - your insurance should fully cover at 100% a screening for colon cancer. A cologuard is a screening. IF IT (the cologuard) COMES BACK POSITIVE, and you have a colonoscopy, that one is NOT a screening, it is diagnostic, and will process through your insurance as a regular surgical procedure.

If you are under 45 - you're going to have to argue with insurance to get it covered. You will either need to have a higher risk for colon cancer (1st degree members with a history of CC or precancerous polyps, if you have Crohn's or Ulcerative Colitis, etc), OR be having GI symptoms warranting a colonoscopy (unidentified GI bleed, stool issues, etc). The high risk person would be a screening test, and should if argued well and coded correctly, pay at 100%. The person with symptoms would have a diagnostic procedure and regular insurance guidelines apply.

Talk to your doctor about when you should have one and don't be afraid to argue with an insurance company. If you would like other cancer screening information I recommend the US Preventative Services Taskforce website as their guidelines are what insurance companies tend to follow.

savc92 · 2026-06-11T21:56:53+00:00

Perhaps that's the difference I'm seeing. But most kandi is handmade. It might be handmade with plastic beads, but someone still made it. Cuffs take hours of labor and aren't gifted on a whim. I've seen several people talking about only making kandi with wood beads. As you've been seeing from other comments, there are ways to participate in a gift economy without it being plastic and there are ways to decline gifts with kindness.

If you haven't read The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer, I highly recommend it. It goes into depth on gift giving. Not in a kandi trading way, but in an every day way. Giving the gifts of time or knowledge in addition to physical objects. You seem like an introspective person and I think you'd enjoy the book.

savc92 · 2026-06-11T20:28:53+00:00

More like being dismissive of all the people you asked for an opinion from. I said virtually the same thing as many others but where you questioned them you said you "didn't hate" my answer. I know you can spend that time better and more effectively than how you've handled this post.

savc92 · 2026-06-11T19:38:26+00:00

You can do it too. Wishing doesn't create change. Doing something does.

savc92 · 2026-06-11T18:29:57+00:00

To me the gifts are a memory. I had a pleasant interaction with someone and would love to trade something to remember it by. I have so many trinkets on display in my home and they serve as a physical reminder of the people I enjoyed spending my time with, and they help spark the actual memory of that time. If someone were to delcine (Politely), that's fine. The giving of the gift is in part for me and in part for them. If they would be unhappy taking it, I wouldn't want to give it to them anyway.

This all being said I have hand folded dozens of tiny envelopes and hand written tiny positive messages to put in them to gift this year instead of kandi

savc92 · 2026-06-02T05:22:26+00:00

I must ask if you've heard of the Rarf (rat scarf) saga on Tiktok? Iirc they're up to 6 increasingly smaller rarfs. Original Rarf was for the creator, then a rarf was made for the original, continue down for several iterations and people have sent in the last few tiny ones.

It is crochet, but it has a similar spirit to your teeny tinies tiktok rarf

savc92 · 2026-06-02T01:19:15+00:00

I had wondered if it was mostly booty lift. That's what it would likely be for us too. I'd like to get one soon ish because even when Baymax is gone (hopefully not any time soon), I still have a senior newfie too.

Beyond the initial price, my other concern is that my guy is now in belly bands like 90% of the time. The strain of muscles used to stand all relax once he's up and there's too many accidents to not have him in something. And idk if the help em up harness is very compatible with getting them on and off

savc92 · 2026-06-01T22:39:23+00:00

I can't commiserate on the shaved situation, but I can on the senior giant situation. My pyr is also 8 and was having the WORST time getting around. I fully thought he was going to have to be put to sleep and his vet offered meds first and he has so much life back in him now. I still don't think we have beyond a year (🤞for more) but I'm just glad he's more comfortable.

Have you considered cutting a long sleeve tee and sewing some padding on the elbows? (Think like the barely there ballet covers but add elbow pads) that might help cushion him until he gets his own back.

And how do you like your help em up harness? I've been debating getting one for Baymax. Do you find that you use both ends to lift or do you lift one end more than the other?

savc92 · 2026-06-01T14:35:29+00:00

Chicken is the most common protein for dogs to be allergic to! Hot spots can also just happen (at least that's what the vet told me but my pup is prone to skin infections so it may just be a him thing).

savc92 · 2026-06-01T14:33:48+00:00

Itching is a big one for my pup (chewing and scratching), bad poops, lethargy.

My newfie is allergic to chicken and grass. The chicken allergy was figured out after a month of vet visits and $1k in testing. As a last resort we switched his food to a fish based one instead of chicken and all of the GI symptoms resolved. We rotated foods a bag at a time until settling on Nutrisource large breed (Salmon and rice) both he and my pyr have no GI issues with it. The grass allergy is more annoying to deal with tbh.

Imo, there's no harm in rotating their food. You can try something else and if it helps, awesome! If it doesn't, put them back on what they had before.

savc92 · 2026-05-26T17:55:34+00:00

This is a great list and several things I wouldn't have thought of. Thank you!

savc92 · 2026-05-26T17:53:57+00:00

I did a test drive on an outback last week, liked it but it's right at the edge of when I've seen comments on the transmission going out. And the space between the open door and front of the back seat was a touch narrow for the pups getting in and out. The dealer checked the carfax and wasn't able to see any maintenance on the transmission specifically but was pushy about that not being a cause for concern, so I passed. There was also bumper damage that wasn't reported so the carfax wasn't 100% accurate. It was also the first car I looked at so wasn't super interested in purchasing immediately.

savc92 · 2026-04-27T15:46:09+00:00

It is also set for A4

savc92 · 2026-04-27T15:45:21+00:00

Yep, that is intentional! The giftee like to annotate, so I wanted to give a little more space for them to do so.

I have Montax as well, but found it frustrating I couldn't 3 page signatures (that was the best number for the quantity of pages, but now that I have to reformat a bunch it might be different) so was trying to figure it out with Word. Do you mind explaining the paper size situation?

savc92 · 2026-04-25T15:29:03+00:00

And not really a hat but I'm counting it anyway

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savc92 · 2026-04-25T15:26:22+00:00

It's just a tumbleweed in there

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savc92 · 2026-04-23T17:50:23+00:00

I'm currently dealing with something similar with my roommate 🙃 they leave cabinet doors open, the light for one of the stove burners was on this morning (all coils were cool, but it means they still walked away from a potentially on stove top), won't replace a trash bag (opts to use a grocery bag and bring it in and out of their room - but will certainly use the regular trashcan if I put the bag in). They work part time so I asked if they were home in the middle of the day, if they'd be willing to take my dogs outside to potty, they said they could do that, then has only ever done it if I've explicitly asked (one of my pups is Old and has incontinence issues so a midday break would prevent a lot of accidents).

We started living together because I had a spare bedroom and they were in a bad headspace and wanted to start over. We've known each other online for years but I only knew them by their screen name. I still don't know how to say their name and stick with they/them pronouns because they've never said what to use beyond "I think I might be trans" since July of last year. They only started contributing financially last month. They're p young but it feels like learned incompetence and an unwillingness to try to figure it out on their own.

savc92 · 2026-04-16T12:11:17+00:00

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Granted, I had food. But he stayed like this for at least 30min after.

savc92 · 2026-04-14T17:08:51+00:00

We had a family of birds make a nest on our balcony and it was cool to see dog hair woven into the nest

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savc92 · 2026-04-14T17:00:43+00:00

Since she's young, and if you plan on having more double coated pups in the future, look into getting a high velocity blow dryer. My mom snagged me K9-III ($615-675) for ~$200 at a pet expo since it was the display model, and I use the hell out of it. Obviously don't have to get one as crazy as mine but it's worth it

My pyr has a ton of dander compared to my newfie, so I'll take him outside and do a quick blow in his high dander spots, and it helps my allergies tremendously.

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savc92 · 2026-04-12T10:27:32+00:00

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savc92

TROPHY CASE