Jaycie

 

I love seeing people provide a positive message on why they are supporting a candidate, but that certainly seems rare this time. I'm not sure that there is any sizable

percentage of the voting public that isn't just voting against someone.

 

Public opinion against both major candidates is so high. I haven't seen one this bad since David Duke ran in the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial election. That was ugly.

 

What I've noticed a lot of this time too is a real apocalyptic mindset towards having one candidate not win. We're in for fascism no matter who takes this one, according to my daily Facebook feed.

 

It's gotten pretty nasty among my friends, like some have said if we don't vote for Hillary we can't be associated with them anymore because we're basically Fascists. It's pretty gross. The limited nature of our Democracy only gives us so much choice, there's no reason to gag the one voice we do have. I respect people who do the research and really have strong reasons for why they voted/will vote a particular way even if it doesn't agree at all with how I personally feel.

I didn't vote for a major candidate. Neither had a platform or history that lined up with my ideals but I've been classified as an Independent voter my whole adult life up until last year anyway so I'm not sure either would have expected my vote. Though the DNC did text me like three times to remind me to send in my ballot even though it's already been confirmed and accepted by the state for over a week. I only changed my registration so I could vote in the primaries, it's going back after Tuesday.

Edit: My god those Halloween decorations are just... wow. Talk about vomit inducing.

Quick update, had a shitty weekend and strayed away from social interaction lest I turn into an angry monster due to pain. Anyway my doctor JUST called and pushed me to a different neurologist for the 8th, she's pretty annoyed the way the other place has been pushing me out. It's a little further into the East Valley but at least it's not in the city proper, going to in PHX is annoying from here. Really glad she's advocating so hard for me cause honestly at times I'm just an emotional mess about all this nonsense. I did talk to her about the medical card, she said the law is weird right now in a way that if I go that route she may not be able to give me anything else for the pain if it's not enough to really treat it. So I'm going to wait and both see how the election goes here (since it's up on the ballot to be legalized here anyway, though it'll be like a year before it goes into effect) and see what treatment I end up having through my specialist. For now she upped my dose of gabapentin and we're going to try high dose ibuprofen instead of staying on the narcotic since I was really wary of that.

*HUGS* Cerina. I'm sorry you're carrying the weight of the family on your shoulders and holy shit putting all the stuff in the yard you NEED for things to work out would make me absolutely neurotic. I hope you can come to some clarity on what to do about it all soon. Just *HUGS* Even if they are just magical virtual hugs, there can never be enough of them.

Ha! A common symptom of fibro is IBS, pinched nerves in the butt area often back you up, and pretty much every med for them will plug you up, too... let's just say poop woes are a very popular topic on my fibro support group board.

 

Jaycie, I don't know where you stand on the whole cannabis issue... but that might be an option if you run out of opioid this weekend... and I'm saying that under the safety and anonymity of an alias because I technically don't have a medical marijuana card... but really, it works as well as my Cymbalta. I'm currently trying to muster up the courage to ask doc for a card. CBD oil is legal in all 50 states, too, it's just hella expensive. I'm thinking about trying a CBD vape and seeing if that helps any.

Yeah I am pretty heavily in favor of legalization so it's definitely something I wouldn't mind having at present but my access is limited. I AM considering asking my doctor to sponsor me getting a card (since it does help my depression/anxiety as well) but yeah, I don't know where she stands on the subject and am feeling timid about it. It's really ridiculous though it is so taboo, humans have been consuming it for centuries, they've found it in tons of ancient graves and traces of THC in some of the mummies from Egypt. We seem to have a long relationship with the plant and clearly it's not going anywhere because people will still look for it even when it's illegal.

Doesn't it seem like ALL medications have that issue? Like it's almost always on the list of side effects on the drug commercials.

Oh, yeah, definitely on Mary Jane. It helped manage my grandpa's pain and issues when cancer overcame him. I shouldn't advocate it as a teacher but it is awesome for an assortment of ailments and I'd like to see testing for benefits. I live in Texas so laws are strict as hell.

At least Obama did overturn the restrictions on clinical testing so hopefully going forward, even if it's not happening in Texas, we'll be seeing more studies done with the plant.

Eczema/ Psoriasis for me (my doctor isn't sure which one I have). I've had it for 16 years and it never truly goes away. I can always use anti inflammatory drugs to keep it in check, but there's rarely a time when there isn't a break out somewhere on my body.

 

I'm just glad that there are drugs at my disposal that offer some relief. Years ago when my mother first got it (it's hereditary) she was only 13 years old and didn't have access to the steroid creams used today to treat it. Even worse she lived in rural South Carolina before air conditioning, so it was just a rough thing for a kid to have to go through.

 

So I really can't complain that much, but it's been a constant ordeal for me and will probably remain so for the rest of my life. Mom still has it, too.

It's really great there is more treatments for it now, my mom has that and it's been a driving factor in her depression over the years since as you probably know full well it can be quite disfiguring. Thankfully she got a job with a dermatologist when she was a young woman and he helped her work through it. Now she's doing so much better with the options out there.

hah, I do think that is a common side effect. I mostly just don't wanna get addicted to them though since my god do they make me feel AMAZING.

Dude that's when it came on for me, it was just random. I walked into the kitchen and was overblown by pain shooting through my right side. They put me on this medication that seems to dull it out but lord does it put me to sleep. Which after two months of not sleeping more than a couple hours a day I suppose I'm grateful for. Yeah I'm so annoyed, it'll be a month from my official diagnosis when I finally see them at this rate. I am out of hydrocodone as of tonight but my doctor wants me to go in on Monday before I'll have any of my medications adjusted (I was trying to get her to give me the okay to up the dose on the other stuff over the phone since it's worked the best for me and I'd really hate to stay on the opioid anyway) so I have a feeling this weekend may be a little rough, hopefully since I'm anticipating it I can get myself in the right mindset to deal with the higher level of pain.

HAH! Best let down ever.

I generally don't stray in here too often when I visit but I couldn't help myself. This election has been a circus. heh.

Yeah, I love it. People in my family rave about how great Sheriff Joe is in his jail policies but I'm like, "he's a dick and costing more than he saves". If I lived in AZ still I wonder if I would have voted for McCain this election too because I believe in term limits. We almost moved to Casa Grande when I was a kid but instead we ended up in Marana. I have family in Glendale, Cave Creek, Tucson and Scottsdale right now. My brother married a chick who works at the nuclear facility out near Casa Grande. You can see Maricopa County Jail from the road.

 

In presidential topic, I can't believe that it took a old video hot mic to really get people riled about Trump.

It's a really easy test in my family to tell who the racists are based on how big their support of good ol' Joe is. I live in Pinal so I can't vote against him but man I despise that guy and am glad he's on his way out. I think yesterday they officially charged him with criminal contempt.

There was a time back in August, fresh off the dem convention, when I thought 400 was a realistic goal for her. At this point I think her max is 375, with 350ish the most realistic. I don't think she wins Arizona, but from this election in its moving firmly into swing state territory. Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada are almost completely part of the blue wall now.

It's hard to say here, I think she's polling ahead of him last I checked but only by a small margin (think it was an AZ Republic poll). Trump has had some big rallies but the steam has really tapered off, at least among my right leaning relations. Most of my family seem to be turning to write ins and 3rd party options. So I think Republic apathy will play a bigger role in Arizona.

Those are just his highest profile easiest to target business venture complaints I have thrown out. Closer in he's sued and been sued numerous times and some smaller ventures have completely gone under. The tax loss is probably another indicator I feel concerning him as well as Trump University and the recent closing of the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City (which to be fair is more about Atlantic City becoming New Detroit City). While business has fluxes there is an emerging pattern which does not bode well. His continued bleating about rigged voting makes me think he knows the writing is on the wall and he's already started shifting blame. And Hillary played him right into that melt down.

 

However as I mentioned next I could almost still vote for him for the reasons I gave as well.

 

We'll see. Some interesting polls concerning states out there.

 

In an interesting what if... What if Hillary didn't say anything in the third debate? Would it have garnered her more votes? Because seriously that woman is not appealing to the Bernie losers. It's BLAH BLAH BLAH but nothing about her reaches across to millennials which Bernie seems to get. Pope pantsuit in the last debate made me think she was going to throw holy water at Trump.

Yeah the less she talks to/about my demographic the better. I am not a "liberal" I'm a progressive and all the policies I've seen come out of that pantsuit just make me want to vomit. Neither of the mainstream candidates talk about anything that remotely sparks my fervor, instead I just feel dread.

Oh wow. I am so sorry. due to some recent family stuff I know dealing with doctor appointments and specialists suck. I hope they get you in soon, Jaycie. That sounds scary.

 

 

Not really a crappy medical issue for me but Saturday night my sister attempted suicide again. I know her life is sucky (a lot is her choices she has made) but I want to yell and scream at her that she is the only one who can make her feel better and not to dwell but I know it's wrong. I'm just so damn mad. Because there is so many other pieces that fall apart in a disfunctional household like my Mom's.

Yeah I'm feeling a bit impatient cause they've rescheduled me THREE TIMES now and I'm tempted to ask my doctor when I talk to her today (hopefully I talk to her today, I'm about out of pain meds and need to reevaluate that situation) if there's another place she can refer me to.

Depression is really hard to deal with, especially as someone looking in, unfortunately I have A LOT of experience with a wide spectrum of depression related disorders because they run deep in my family (and in some part myself). When I was much younger and had problems with that I thought I was a hindrance to everyone elses' happiness, I couldn't even fathom that they'd want me to fix my situation. She may have a different perspective but for me it wasn't about how miserable I was but the guilt from how I felt I was making everyone around me feel because I was a "terrible person." Grated this was extremely irrational, especially given I was only 13 at the time but I had been through a lot of verbal abuse at the hands of my stepmother and the thought was really, really ingrained.

I should note (in case there's concern) I'm pretty great now in terms of my depression (I'm clinically moderate), well managed overall and without drugs. One of my new medications does reduce my serotonin levels so that's hit me a little harder than I'd like but I've been bulking up on b vitamin enriched foods and lounging in the sun for a few minutes at a time twice a day. Working well so far.

I think I tore my rotator cuff in a minor way-- been dealing with pain in it for months. But it's a surgery that results in pain often worse than what it's supposed to repair, so I don't know...

Yeah that is not a good place to be in, meh. Hopefully therapy is an option and won't be stupid painful. >.<

Also, sorry to hear about the issues, ladies

 

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and pretty much lost my job as a result. Had a true manic state for the first time and work kept delaying the help I requested, which made things worse and worse.

Uck, what a bunch of tools. >.< I hope you're doing a lot better now.

Sorry to hear about everyone's health issues.

 

As for me, infertility is a bitch and the universe has an awful sense of humor.

I'm so sorry Nanci. Nothing I really can say will be adequate, just hang in there. *hugs*

 

At least in my case there's a strong chance I'll be just fine, I just need to be patient. God though fibromyalgia sucks Katrina. I'm really sorry you're going dealing with that. One of my good friends struggles with it and she says it's one of those things where you can have a really great day with manageable symptoms followed by a very painful day where she just kind of wants to do nothing. *hugs*

 

Thanks I'm half in denial, and half learning to adjust to spoonie life. I think once I get over the denial part I'm going to turn into a mad advocate for research. I'm too young for this ****.

 

I can empathize a bit with you because of it, at least. I've definitely been bedridden before. My big symptom is pain and muscle spasms in my hips. X-rays showed that at one point I fractured my spine, sounds like close to where your disc herniated. For awhile, my doctors assumed that was the problem. It did heal poorly, so I have some arthritis in that vertebra that flares up sometimes. Stay laying low, baby yourself! That super sucks that they keep delaying your appointment, for chrissake, you can't put your whole life on hold forever! And pain is miserable

 

Yeah I know what you mean as I lay around I often think "god I am way too young to be having this **** going on." I also have arthritis (fingers and legs) but that pales in comparison to this. Scaitica is like no joke, would not recommend.

Oh god a fracture? Honestly I was kind of worried that's what was going on with me, like my arthritis had spread to the area and weakened my joints but of course I'm not a doctor so my self musing was way off. I could see how that would delay a proper diagnosis of your actual issues though, the spine really effects everything else in a pretty fantastic way. I'm surprised sometimes how sore I get in places that seem completely unrelated to this issue.

Man, that sounds awful, Jaycie. Here's hoping surgery is the answer. Scary to go through but awesome to have a light at the end of the tunnel. Are you tearing through shows/movies/podcasts with all that downtime?

At least in my case there's a strong chance I'll be just fine, I just need to be patient. God though fibromyalgia sucks Katrina. I'm really sorry you're going dealing with that. One of my good friends struggles with it and she says it's one of those things where you can have a really great day with manageable symptoms followed by a very painful day where she just kind of wants to do nothing. *hugs*

Don't wanna derail the wonderful feelings/purpose of this thread so I posted an explanation here.

Rather than derail the happy shameless self promotion thread I thought I'd start another one for us to share our miserable health experiences cause I know I'm not the only one that's gone through them. Currently I'm on bed rest because a couple months ago I started having intense pain in my back for some mysterious reason, like I still don't know what caused it, I was just cooking dinner when it came on. Anyway turns out I have a rare type of herniated disk situated right on the center of my spinal column pressing on the nerves on both sides of my spine and it's VERY close to my spinal chord. When we found out the doctor was pretty alarmist about it and basically said if I continued my normal habits I'd be paralyzed in six months and that's not really something I want. So for now I'm just kind of waiting around to see a neurologist who will recommend what I need to do going forward. I'm hoping (but terrified) I'm a good candidate for surgery because it's likely I'll make a good recovery with that option but we'll see. They keep moving out my appointment so hopefully I'll be back on my feet by the turn of the year but so far it's not looking promising. So how about you guys? Been through any crappy medical stuff? Still going through it? Feel free to share happy endings or rant in misery!

My daughter just turned one

My son is enjoying preschool and isn't falling apart every day

I'm finally going to school with a real degree and career in mind

Which leads into I'm leaving a career that I hate

I've found a new hobby, and created an Etsy shop turning NES cartridges into full blown emulators.

Dude this is incredibly rad. I'm going to show my sister, my defacto brother in law collects old games. I think he'd freakin love this.

As for me personally I don't work anymore! I think that's definitely some thing to celebrate after toiling my entire adult life (even though it took me getting laid off from my miserable job for it to happen). I'm really thankful Link's job is good enough we can afford to make this happen. Especially cause our boy really needed the extra attention at the moment.

I picked up doing handcrafts again and have been really enjoying it. My new love is hand/arm knitting, hoping to put together some Christmas gifts while I laze about on bed rest.

I wouldn't use Nightly as photo storage, it drives up the bandwidth usage and that increases administration costs. Just sayin, there's tons of free photo hosting services out there that would serve you better.

Sorry Nat and I didn't donate this year, just haven't been around and honestly now my donation money is being sucked up by my social causes. If I still had my server I'd offer space there for you guys but I lost it when I was laid off earlier this year. As much as I love the archives I do think the long term practical solution would be to downsize. As an old member that occasionally likes to live in the past and poke through it, as long as someone makes a dump of the files and stores it somewhere safe I think I'd be chill with it. Heck they could zip it up and make it available for a limited time so those of us who really would miss it can download it and store it for themselves. I'd rather be able to poke in here every so often and still be able to see how you all are doing rather than loose it completely cause we don't wanna clean out the closet.

Someone come make me breakfast.

I'm late to the party, but I tend to give away/donate (if it's in good condition). We have a swap group in my community that I totally under utilize but think it's a fantastic idea. Occasionally with clothes, cause I sew I'll recycle the fabric into something else if part of it's not salvageable. I really like making ribbon yarn from old clothes that I can't give away.

I never pop in and stay as long as I mean to here. Hope you all are well.

Aww. I'm so sorry Spam. That sucks that your family isn't really letting you help them with all this by not communicating well. I hope they get their act together before they end up in a miserable situation.

My family plays a vicious game of monopoly each reunion and yes there's rampant cheating/modification of standard rules. I didn't even know how to properly play the game until I was a teenager. It mostly involves a lot of literal "under the table" surprise business mergers and weird **** like that. I haven't personally participated though as I haven't been to a reunion really since reaching adulthood (they are every four years I think) and the age limit is strictly set to 18 and over.

This isn't a board game but like your stuff it's still a game! My friends and I played cross country spoons while at summer and winter retreat each year. Basically you play Spoons but instead of the spoons being on the table they were all the way across the camp grounds. There were a lot of injuries involved in that game and you really can't cheat.

Since my family is still tied to the same religious community I was raised in this comes up A LOT for me when I visit with my grandparents. Generally I just try to be pleasant and hope they don't ask me where I got to church now (hint: it's nowhere).

I can't believe that I have been on a message board where I have almost 20,000 posts.

 

Meanwhile, Primbud is somewhere scoffing at that number.

Don't even get me started on Primbud. At one point I actually tried to get the rest of the admins to let me remove post counts cause of him, lol. 12 years of a lot of lurking for me. I was 18, married young, and lonely in Vegas when I found this place. I think it was another year before I actually started posting regularly though cause I'm just like that. Sometimes I stumble upon my old board story drafts and comics in my backups and get the feels. Now I live in AZ with Link and our boy (who will be starting kindergarten this year), and things are generally okay.

I really like ASUS myself, I've been working on a (i5, 4gb ram, two hdd) referb I got off of Newegg for about four plus years now. It gets REALLY heavy use since I work remote and have traveled a bit and I haven't had any hardware issues. My fan is a little loud atm but I probably need to open it up and do a good cleaning. I would never buy a Dell or HP personally but I've had poor experience with both in my history. Just last year we bought an HP printer/fax combo and it's already defective. We don't even use it that much, I use the scanner more than any part of it and that's only like once in a great while. My last desktop before my custom build was hp and I totally hated it, but I got a special deal on it cause Link worked for them at the time. Never again though.

I'm sorry you're feeling this way. Balancing things, especially when you have other family (like your mother) also adding to the noise, can make it hard to prioritize. Cause you want to be there for all of them at once but you really can't. It may be worth talking to your mother about your drives to and from work being a time for you to mentally prepare for work and to decompress before you get home. It may be a really difficult conversation though if she is very needy so I understand if you don't want to do that but I would hope she'd understand given the stress you're under right now. Just try to explain it won't be forever and you'll find a better time to call her regularly as things settle down. Even though I work from home it takes me a good half hour to get out of work mode and feel like I can be part of the family sometimes, I imagine it's even harder on you. At the very least as everyone else has said, you know it's just for now, so I guess the best thing I can say is "hang in there buddy."

Personally when I'm very stressed or feel like you're describing I make sure to have "now don't go mental" time, even if it's just simple quiet meditation for only ten minutes a day. Sorry I know I'm like coming out of lurkville out of nowhere but I felt for you.

We had two video cards just mysterious disappear in route this year. -.- Newegg was kind enough to send us a replacement but we think someone at our post office stole it cause they haven't seemed to use them ever again. Glad apple and everyone but your delivery jerks were kind enough to help you sort it out.