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[MaximumZero]

Went to the doctor because of some nasal problems. My two options given were: a month-long steroid treatment or surgery.

So I call both my parents because that's how my family rolls. Everyone is telling me to do the surgery instead of a steroid treatment. I talk to my mom first, then call my dad. Then my mom calls back and UNLOADS on me. "Oh, well, I've been reading on the internet and....."

My mom and dad both have science backgrounds, but not medicine especially. But they both consider themselves very well informed, and my mom tends to think she actually knows something about medicine. So she's sitting there contradicting the doctor, rattling off her Google search discoveries and finally, I just lost it.

Dear Mom. You're not a fucking doctor. Google does not make you a doctor. You didn't see what he saw. All that you're really going off of is your (well-meaning) but totally smothering mothering instinct. Yes, I know steroids suppress your immune system. Yes, I know some people get addicted to the way it makes them feel. Yes, I know it can lead to an increase in acne. Yes, I know you're more liable to get an infection while you're on them.

But godammnit, you are not a doctor. So quit fucking shouting at me and talking a million miles a minute. All you're doing is making me feel shitty about my choice of medical treatment. FFS, if the steroid treatment drives me insane or makes me feel like shit, I'll quit it and go get the surgery. But FFS, when a doctor says "If I were you I would...." I take that as a pretty reasonable assessment of what the best treatment option at this time is.

Nasal polyps?

Ding ding ding. Normally I wouldn't have geeked out about something like this....but when you manage to remove one of your own polyps by hand because they've become so pronounced...yeah.

PS: The steroids make me feel kinda drunk and nauseous, a little like I'm high. This is not what I was led to believe I would feel by the doctor. Because "super man!" this ain't.

Depends on the type of steroid you've been prescribed. Anabolic steroids would make you feel like Superman, but they wouldn't help your condition. I'm willing to bet that you're on some kind of corticosteroid, which is anti-inflammatory.

[nenjin]

His words, not mine. Kept talking about how good I was going to feel and to take them in the morning instead of at night because I was going to feel like I have more energy than normal. That's not really been my experience so far. I feel kinda anxious, like on the upswing of a trip, and slightly dizzy like a mild nicotine headrush. And strangely, sort of sleepy too.

In retrospect maybe a simple out patient procedure was the way to go. This year, I swear. Polyps this, polyps that and my bank account chugging lower like an office water cooler.

[Sirus]

Well they have to put something new in, even if it's just characters.
See: FIFA games, presumably other sports games, fighting games that aren't Smash Bros

It just makes no sense to put Lucina in when Marth is already there, since she's literally just a Marth genderswap in every way. Except maybe backstory, but that's irrelevant to Smash.

I would have liked to see a rep from one of the previous FEs, maybe one of the GBA games. Ephraim, anyone?

Or maybe Lyndis, if they had their hearts set on a female Fire Emblem character. She was a support trophy, but I see no reason she can't be playable.

[Putnam]

Well they have to put something new in, even if it's just characters.
See: FIFA games, presumably other sports games, fighting games that aren't Smash Bros

It just makes no sense to put Lucina in when Marth is already there, since she's literally just a Marth genderswap in every way. Except maybe backstory, but that's irrelevant to Smash.

I would have liked to see a rep from one of the previous FEs, maybe one of the GBA games. Ephraim, anyone?

Lucina is literally a Marth alt costume.

[ChairmanPoo]

Afaik topical corticosteroids are normally used for that kind of thing. Then again, maladies vary from person to person; 

(Btw: If I had nasal polyps I'd try corticoids first too. More often than not people relapse and end up in surgery anyway, IIRC, but it's worth a try. Nasal surgery is pretty unpleasant)

I'm kind of surprised that they are making you nauseous, though. In the ward we use them to stave off chemotherapy-induced nausea.

[nenjin]

(Btw: If I had nasal polyps I'd try corticoids first too. More often than not people relapse and end up in surgery anyway, IIRC, but it's worth a try. Nasal surgery is pretty unpleasant)

That was his take verbatim. That it was worth seeing if the steroids would basically get rid of them, and then I might need surgery anywhere from 6 months to years to deal with it if they relapse. Now that I actually know there's a medical reason for me constantly being congested on and off throughout the day, I can know if it gets worse.

Coincidentally, he had a few words about the procedure too. My dad told me horror stories of ripping stuff out, packing your head with gauze and letting you bleed for 3 days. This ENT doctor said in the last 10 years they've greatly refined the procedure, so they cut out the polyps with surgical precision and see where they're going with microscopic cameras. That of the 5 doctors in his practice, three still do it the old way. He said it's an outpatient procedure, over in an hour and most people immediately feel better because there's so much less trauma. He almost made it sound appealing.

Almost.

As for the queasiness, I have a touchy stomach so I'm pretty sensitive to how stuff makes it feel. Happened shortly after the first dose and has tapered off since then. The weird disconnected feeling I'm getting though persists.

Tomorrow morning will be fun though. I tend to wake up in a blitz and head out the door. I'll be doing so with a stomach full of strong coffee and steroids. YYEEEEAAAAAHHHH.

[Spehss _]

I wonder if Toady comments in the hard code for Dwarf Fortress.

[Putnam]

I wonder if Toady comments in the hard code for Dwarf Fortress.

If he didn't, it'd be even less comprehensible than he says it already is to him.

[Recluse]

Management of the apartment complex I live in told me that I am not allowed to have DirecTV installed at my apartment unless I have the satellite mounted on a tripod on my patio and keep the door to said patio open at all times. This wouldn't be a problem except that my mother had been trying to get me cable for three months now, and she just today got an appointment set up for people to come out and have it set up at my apartment. I don't have a credit rating so just about every service out there I cannot have in my name without some kind of red tape, so my services outside of utilities are in my mother's name. So when I asked her to get cable set up at my apartment because I haven't watched television on a regular basis since 2010 and she now has to cancel an appointment she made for me because of management and their hard-on for aesthetics over functionality I end up with a cold, incessant rage begin to bubble up and ferment inside the very fiber of my being because they ruined something that my mother had been working on for three months and ruined my chances of watching shows I actually enjoy or even being able to do something with people I might invite to my apartment. Fucking hell man.

[nenjin]

This is why I'm glad I held out for a roommate and a house with a landlord who is also a friend. I was dreading the red tape of apartment living for reasons like this. (Sometimes it's purely so the land owners can screw you, for example, by setting up cable for the whole building and rolling it into people's rent, so they can arbitrarily fuck with the cable rate themselves.

[Mephisto]

The fan has been running constantly in our HVAC for months. This drove our electricity bill to roughly double what it was last year at this time for the past two months. So we call maintenance.

Yesterday, maintenance guy rips out our thermostat, forgets an item in his truck, goes out to get it while leaving the door wide open for declawed cats to escape, comes back, replaces the thermostat with a digital one, and leaves. Doesn't fix it. Thankfully the cats didn't get out or the excrement would hit the air circulators.

Fire off an email this morning saying it didn't work. Maintenance guy shows up when we're at work. "Oh, it didn't work last time? I'll flip the breaker to the furnace." Yep, their solution to "fan is running constantly and driving up our bill" is to ensure that our AC doesn't run at all.

If there's one thing I'm thankful to this place for, it's that they taught me what exactly you get with a $400/mo apartment. At least we're moving out in two months.

[Spehss _]

I wonder if Toady comments in the hard code for Dwarf Fortress.

If he didn't, it'd be even less comprehensible than he says it already is to him.

I figured commenting would be kinda essential for something as complex and eldritch as DF.

[Recluse]

This is why I'm glad I held out for a roommate and a landlord who is also a friend. I was dreading the red tape of apartment living for reasons like this. (Sometimes it's purely so the land owners can screw you, for example, setting up cable for the whole building and rolling it into people's rent, so they can arbitrarily fuck with the cable rate themselves.

Well, I have Section 8 because after having 20 roommates in an adult group home for five years I never want to have to deal with a roommate situation again. I just made the mistake of moving to a nice apartment complex that only lets me live here because my monthly income of $867 is more than three times the rent I end up paying thanks to Section 8, a nice apartment complex that houses mostly college students and values looking nice and uniform over everything else. On the plus side every time I've had a maintenance problem they've responded to it within thirty minutes and fixed it free of charge, so at least there's that.

[Molly Renata]

Lucina is literally a Marth alt costume.

AFAIK she's her own character, just exactly the same as Marth. (In other words: a clone.)

Which just makes it even stupider.

[nenjin]

You know, I looked up nasal polyps, and I'm suddenly suffering from 'Nose has been blocked an hour! Something's wrong!'

Right?! I smoke, so being congested sorta comes with the territory from time to time. But I always thought my nasal passages were relatively clear. Apparently, not. Sorta makes me wonder what I've been missing out on. The doctor said he was surprised I still had a sense of smell. That sense has always been acute, so if this all gets cleared up....I'll be smelling like a goddamn bloodhound.