Struggle Thread mk II - No one likes us, we don't care

[bluemax]

So my soon to be ex quit her fucking job without a backup while we’re still sharing finances without telling me


Just can’t

10 or so years ago the girl I was living with, who had been my girlfriend until she broke up with me because I was in the middle of crunch for the first time and was kind of sucking as a boyfriend, decided to go from working part time to prep for med school to being fully unemployed while prepping for med school. This was a problem because we had been splitting rent 50/50 on a house that neither of us could afford solo. So then I had to find a place for both of us to live that I could afford on my own (which is not easy when you're an entry level game programmer in Los Angeles during the economic collapse of 2008). Also she rescued a cat. And that cat got hit by a car. And I had to pay its emergency medical expenses, even though I said we shouldn't have the cat and she shouldn't let it roam free.

A few months after moving into the new place she decided living with me wasn't working (I was being kind of shitty tbh), so without warning she moved out while I was out of town for work. Probably a month or two later my employer went fully out of business, and this was after they had failed to pay me properly for several months. Also I found out the aforementioned girl got married to someone she knew for less time than we dated (he looked like a douchier me). I suffered a pretty major depressive episode that I honestly don't even to this day understand how I ever got out of it.

Somehow, I am friends with this person now. Albeit we did not talk for several years.

I don't really know if I have a point to this story, sorry.

[Huff]

So last night ended up going really bad and Tramadol sucks.

Tramadol is a bad drug, labeled a safe alternative while not being sage, still being an opiate with a host of other side effects

any doctor that uses it is an idiot or uninformed

[Joe Molotov]

I know I've pointed it out before but this place still runs on windows 98

Is it SE at least tho?

[Himu]

Had meeting with local paper photographer scheduled today.

Started washing my clothes, I forget a sock. It's a front loader. Wait for stupid machine to stop so I can put it in. Put crap in, I swear I press resume. Go back to washing machine 40 minutes later and the clothes aren't wet. Have to "rewash" clothes in washing machine that takes forever. Front loaders are nothing but trash.

Cut my nose on the nostril. It won't stop bleeding. I haven't even showered yet.

Combined, I have to cancel a meeting I've been waiting a month for because someone decided to curse me with bad luck this morning.

[chronovore]

My elderly mother lives in Idaho, still enjoys traveling the world.

My stepdad had a stroke on one of those trips, so I flew to Turkey and looked after my mother while he quietly struggled for three weeks and then passed-on in the ICU. Took another week of insurance wrangling and dealing with the US Embassy while we figured out how to get his remains repatriated.

Mid-last year, my mother wanted to visit Peru. There was a medical emergency during that trip. I nearly flew to Peru, but it was more practical to meet her in Idaho and help her recover. She said she was done with international trips.

This year, January or thereabouts, my mother says she's booked a trip to France and will be traveling by cruise ship for several weeks. My sister and I can't believe she's doing this again.

This month, COVID-19 is continuing its exponential growth and is tracking to be seriously dangerous. The cruise ship thing becomes a major concern; they've been examples of exactly how to not handle an outbreak.

My sister and I approach our mother about it, and though she's at first willing to look into travel plan changes, she reneges the next day and is angry at us for trying to force her to change her plans. I point out that I've been able to fly anywhere at any time to help her out of bad situations, but THIS SITUATION with COVID-19 might make it so I can't travel to help. Travel itself might not just be unsafe, it might be impossible.

Anyway, yeah. I'm freaking out.

[Rufus]

It's not gonna be your fault if anything happens.

[Mr Gilhaney]

Was told my liver is degrading at a rate, where we have to seriously consider transplant post corona virus shit. 

[CatsCatsCats]

Sending love, Gilhaney

[Mr Gilhaney]

Thank you nephews. But no, feet pics are for mahmoud only.

If I do, you can share my steam account and the pride of having 1200 hours in garfield kart.

[team filler]

eat more chikn

[Bebpo]

So kind of holy shit, still processing for me.

Background:
So I've got Crohn's Disease. Diagnosed in the 2000s, tried every treatment pill available and nothing worked, got really bad and almost died until I have a small bowel resection surgery in 2009 where they cut the section of my small intenstines out where the bulk of the crohn's germs were located. Immediately after I went on remicade infusions every 6-8 weeks which make me pretty immune suppressed, especially to colds/respiratory diseases. In order to try to prevent the Crohn's from coming back and getting bad again. It's also made surgeries risky and I've had to take a lot of antibiotics for lots of things and I don't do great with those.

I've been generally ok with GI for last 10 years other than still haven't issues from the surgery and having to take like imodium and probiotics daily and avoid spicy foods, dairy, gassy foods, really acid foods as much as possible. So like 75% ok GI. But I've been sick every 2-3 months and generally knocked out bad for 2 weeks at a time each time from every cold/flu in the world that comes through my state. I've also been taking too high dosage of the remicade since I've lost like 15 lbs due to food poisoning last November and H1N1 last month and I was already a bit too high dosage.

Current:
I'm 7 weeks in right now and would be doing my next infusion around next week. I wrote a long letter to my GI doctor (whose like the biggest expert in the field at Cedars in LA) explaining how my Crohn's has been in remission for 10 years, my remicade antibodies test have shown I've developed 0 antibodies to remicade medication despite being on it for 10 years (normally people develop those years in and have to go off remicade because it's not effective anymore) which seems that maybe my body doesn't really develop antibodies to the remicade (which is the main concern of going off it and not being able to go back on it).

I said considering the COVID19 situation and it being respitory and my bad history with colds/flus like H1N1 almost killing me last month being pretty bad and that I'm generally doing good now and would rather be in the 38 going on 39 year old with no complications category of survival rates if I do get COVID19 (and I get everything so I'm sure I will get this in the coming months), maybe it makes sense to go off my remicade and see how I do and go from there. I told him I was aware that it might not work when I come back to it but also that there are other newer medications which could work.

Anyhow he got back to me today and said given the fluid and unknown situation of COVID19 and where I am and that I'm aware of the risks of the crohn's coming back and remicade not being able to work, he's ok with temporarily stopping my remicade medication for now and seeing how I do. He says there have been a lot of new medications in the last 10 years if remicade doesn't work again, though they also have a risk of not working.


So that's that. I'm not doing my next infusion next week. And in a few weeks the remicade should be out of my system for the first time in 10 years
...and I will have an normal, not suppressed, immune system of a generally good shape 38 going on 39 year old for the first time in 10 years.
...I also have no idea how my Crohn's will act since I've been on this since it's been gone.

So a bit of an unknown, but I'm pretty excited about not being immune suppressed for the first time since I've really had a social life. It's also made me slightly less anxious about the COVID19 situation because I feel less like "Welp, probably gonna get it and 50/50 on whether I die from pneumonia" to "Welp, probably gonna get it, but hopefully it'll be mild and I'll be ok after a few weeks of feeling shitty"

Gonna hope for the best and that my Crohn's doesn't come back and I can enjoy being a healthy immune system person this year and then next year when COVID19 is under control I can get back on some form of prevention to keep my Crohn's from coming back.

[Joe Molotov]

Exxxotica Chicago got delayed and now I may not be able to go with my girlfriend

Take Jill instead.

[CatsCatsCats]

*whistles*

Bring her out

[toku]

MAKE MORE CONTENT THEN

[Madrun Badrun]

Hang in there.  A key thing for me for stopping my depression is going to work every day - which I can't do now.

[Mupepe]

Got furloughed today.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Hang in there Mupepe.

I don't know if this qualifies as MY struggle per se, but jesus. Every morning I get up and am like "OK, damage report" check the family, the news, the stocks, work. This morning I actually got to sleep in, and  was hopeful. Work up, started the damage report, Earthquake in Utah, Parents are OK thankfully but Utah has non-existent building codes I'm worried if there's something bigger, wife is having severe anxiety, GF is sick (no fever or major symptoms thankfully), and one of my best employees was just found from being missing for the last 2 days (initial yay), he's in a hospital with kidney failure and needs a kidney transplant ASAP. God, it just keeps piling up.

[Bebpo]

Sooo, yeah this is bad for small businesses.

Today we already had 3 cases where clients who had settled a lawsuit and were signing the paperwork all backed out of the settlements. And these were property owners with millions of dollars. But they're like our tenants are all closing and not paying rent and we have no money to settle lawsuits.

Our office typically gets ~13 new cases in a week which is how we pay our bills. We also just hired 2 new employees and 1 new paralegal which brought the monthly cost of running our office from about 30k/month in bills to pay to ~55k/month. So far this week we've gotten 1 case. We may get 1 or less for the next several months or longer. There's also a very good chance that a lot of the bills we send out at the end of this month for March's work (as we'll still have enough work on present cases to bill for March/April at least) won't get paid because of people not having the money or prioritizing and not paying their attorney bills.

If we go from a good amount of cash coming in each month to close to $0, we've got a few hundred thousand in the bank as the cash reserves for the business, but we'll need to fire all our new employees in a month or two and then it'll still cost 30k/month to keep the lights on and by the end of the year we might be down to $0. From a 1-2 million/year business to $0.

Worst case scenario is we shut the office down and have to lay off all our employees in the fall, and re-open the law firm in a year or so when things are back to normal and people have money to spend on lawyers again.

Luckily I did not buy a house this year and spend most of my bank savings on the down payment and have a high $4k/month mortgage or something. With just the money in the bank and being conservative with spending I can probably live for 5-6 years with no income until I'm broke. So even if we shut down I can float this luckily for a while.

But yeah, this is gonna be bad. I'm more worried my elderly mom/dad are gonna get really sick from the stress of going broke and their business of 40 years falling apart than Covid-19 at this point. My mom's the accountant and has anxiety and she's been freaking out everyday.

it'd be easier to 'hang in there' if the state of MMORPGs wasn't such trash

FFXIV is great, come join me! I'm on Ultros.

[I'm a Puppy!]

I go to a coffee shop almost every day and talk to the owner. I didn't need to go yesterday, but I went out of my way to give them some of my money and support them. I talked to the owner and he's a good guy. I asked him how long he would be open and he said as long as he could because he had to support his employees. Last night he closed shop. I don't know what that's going to do to him and his employees.

My company was in a bad spot going into this. Q1 is always terrible for consulting firms, us especially so. But now we have 4 senior resources on the bench and no one is doing/saying anything about what's next. As you guys know I've found something else but was going to start there late next month so I can get my quarterly bonus and give the company time to deal with losing me and to shift their resources accordingly and give me time to complete any small projects that might come up. But now, who the fuck knows. Everything was slated to start Q2, now it's all pushed to Q3. Do you keep bench for that long? The issue is, these kind of people with this kind of experience are exceptionally rare (one company in Sacramento has been looking to fill a position like this for over a year) so if you lay those people off and then land a deal you're not going to get them back. And there's been complete radio silence from the mgmt team.

[Bebpo]

Pretty worried about my dad. He's 70+, in the most stressful time of his life, being stuck in a bad deal and losing most of his retirement savings, all his pension stocks aren't worth anything and the business he's built up from the ground to be very successful over 40 years potentially could go bankrupt. He's also never fully recovered from the H1N1 flu 1.5 months ago and had a lingering cough that won't go away because all the stress and now he thinks he might have Covid-19 because he's got a runny nose and feels even worse than normal and coughing more. He's very old school so he's still been going into work during this while everyone else is working from home except 1 or 2 people. All our employees have been falling sick one after another and in our group meetings everyone is coughing. So far everyone whose gotten sick has recovered within a week, but our employees are also like <40 with most < 30 years old.

Me and my brother and my mom are telling him to take it easy and try to rest and drink fluids. We tell him we're handling the business and financially I'm in a better place thanks to being a zero risk totally liquid conservative person with my savings so I can help float my parents and for a few years. But he's just so dejected and down. He's one of those baby boomer era people that feels like they built up into a success and were untouchable and always growth and expansion and he's just not used to losing a lot.

I just hope he makes it through this.
Also hope he doesn't actually have COVID-19 because my mom is also 70+ and is very frail and I'm concerned for her too.

[Huff]

I know I kinda poo pooed this in the beginning so I'll admit I was wrong.

PLEASE HAVE CONVERSATIONS WITH YOUR FAMILY ABOUT LAST WISHES NOW, BEFORE THEY GET TO A HOSPITAL. don't make us make the call. also dont make us intubate and code your 85 year old  family members

[Huff]

Part of the saddest thing is a lot of people are going to die ALONE in a hospital because of this thing, with family either unable to be allowed into the hospital because of massive restrictions or unable to travel

[Madrun Badrun]

How are you doing Huff?

[Huff]

It's the calm before the storm where I am. Emergency room visits have actually slowed down as people are avoiding coming in (and they should if people arn't sick).

Midwest and low population density cities (spread out population) may get through this successfully. Coast cities are going to be hit hard and soon.

Personally I'm okay. Friends and co-workers are starting to have the talks about what to do when it hits. Temporary separations. Babies going to live with grandparents, etc. Rough times all around to try to limit us high risk people from spreading it to people we love

[Bebpo]

Even on the weekend when I'm not working, I've been spending 2-3 hours a day on the phone with different family members talking about financial situations and ideas for surviving. Mostly people calling me.
It's definitely pretty depressing and tiring.

[Bebpo]

Actually add another 2 hours for today.
Also family fighting is getting more. Will get worse as things go on. Everyone wants to do things different.

[El Babua]

Just finished a team call where they announced cuts.

Got invited to another meeting at 2:00 with less than half the team invited 

[Bebpo]

Just finished a team call where they announced cuts.

Got invited to another meeting at 2:00 with less than half the team invited 

That sucks. I guess bright side is you made the cut?

[Akala]

Just finished a team call where they announced cuts.

Got invited to another meeting at 2:00 with less than half the team invited 

can you tell by the people invited if it's the good call or the bad call?

good luck.

[El Babua]

Considering the HR people are here, it's the bad one lol

[Akala]

 

[Madrun Badrun]

My uncle passed away.  Kind of for the best instead of dragging it out more.  Still really hard since he wasn't old.

[Bebpo]

Sorry for your loss Madrun.

[Oblivion]

welp, just got laid off 

[team filler]

don't pay any bills, especially medical debt 

[nachobro]

just wait 10 years and they forgive that shit. what are they gonna do, garnish your wages?

[Madrun Badrun]

My contact ripped in my eye, I can't get it out, and I think my optomitrist is closed for the virus.  I can see fine so trying not to panic. 

[Akala]

if you have a good supply of saline just unload/eyewash. even if not flushed out hopefully it moves enough to where you can get it.

[team filler]

just wait 10 years and they forgive that shit. what are they gonna do, garnish your wages?

I thought it was 5 years? 

[nachobro]

even better!

[Madrun Badrun]

Finally got it out. 

[Madrun Badrun]

Think I did something to my eye or its just really tired after messing with it all day.  I have to squint to read text and shit. 

[Bebpo]

Been managing to stay at home and stay safe, but now that I'm off my meds this week insane inflammation pain came back to the point where it was like 11/10 suicidal constant pain and even when it's ok it's like 3-4/10 constant pain.

So now I have to go to LA to a doctor's office today, first time out in the world since lockdown, and then starting tuesday have to go to chemo/infusion center regularly again to do infusions and blood tests and get back on my meds which will make me very immune suppressed and high risk group for Covid-19.

Also it's possible my medication will not work anymore since I went off it and it's been about 4-5 weeks and my body could have built up a resistance.

Went from feeling pretty good about chances of surviving this mess by avoiding people and working at home, to a lot more iffy since will have to be exposed to risk areas on regular basis and no immune system  :'(

[Bebpo]

Doctor appointment went well today. They're set up really good and only interacted with the valet touching the valet card back and forth and a door handle and hand sanitized my hand. Got an injection and feel a lot better already. Feeling more positive about this.

[Bebpo]

So pain was really low on Saturday and had a good day (when you're pain free for the first time in 5 days you feel really energetic and good!), but got bad again on Sunday and lost most of the day just trying to not focus on pain. Guess I pretty much have to get back on my meds on Tuesday and hopefully things get back to normal.

But I've been kinda depressed about going back on my immune-suppressant meds. Not only am I risking my life while on it going and getting infusions, but basically for the next 6-12 months dating and friends are gonna be high risk.

Like it's already been where sometimes I kiss someone on a date and get a cold or something. But until either vaccines are out or the curve is so low it would be like 1/10,000 chance the person I"m on a date with could have Covid, then any physical contact/dates with anyone is risking dying. So I don't see myself dating for a long while, which sucks since I've been since for like 5 years now and was hoping to settle down soon. I've been doing some online dating chatting with a couple people and it's going well and at least one is dtf but yeah that ain't gonna open.

Same with friends. My friends who are all healthy and late 20s, early 30s, once things get better will be out doing hugs and events and stuff regularly. But I can't risk being that close contact with people while I have no immune system until this thing is very under control. So basically gonna have to not see my friends for 6-12 months.

Family, while I can see them from a distance and talk to them on the phone, I can't be up close at family dinners or events until 6-12 months.

Going to restaurants/eating take out etc...while lower risk, given my immune system, I'll probably need to continue only eating my own cooked food and instacart market deliveries for another 6-12 months.

And I'll need to keep wfh while the rest of my office goes back to work, which is ok, but still isolating.


A lot of this pretty low risk stuff once the curve goes down substantially, if I wasn't immune suppressed with the moderate potential of death upon contracting COVID, I'd be ok with the risk of doing and if I get Covid I'll probably be ok with a normal healthy immune system of a 38 year old non-smoker, non-obese person. But now I'm gonna have to be back on my meds, so basically gonna have no life outside working from home and playing videogames, watching books, reading for 6-12 months.

[Madrun Badrun]

Sorry man. 

[Rahxephon91]

Well I was involved in a car accident a few months ago which in no way did I think was my fault. And now Enterprise says it was my fault and wants 4,000 something for an accident that wasn't my fault. Great.

[Oblivion]

Update on my hand situation: it's gotten way worse 

this happened over the past month or so, but the pain is much, much more severe. there were many things i couldn't do already like type and grab, but now i can't even form a fist anymore.


yet oddly enough, this may possibly be a sign of good news. the reason being is that this pain is happening in a different joint on the same finger. last time i posted this, while i had pain on all joints, most of the pain was on the top joint. now it's on the bottom and middle joint and not as much on the top anymore. why is this a good thing? because my top joint was the only one that was missing cartilage (the other two were normal). meaning, the pain shouldn't be effected by other areas unless it means that the pain i had before WASN'T cause of the missing cartilage/arthritis.

on the other hand, it could also potentially be something much, much worse. so..that would kind of suck. either way, i'm going to see the doctor on friday.

[Mr Gilhaney]

had my stents removed and all pain went away for a few days. now unbearable itching has returned, making me unable to sleep and work. only had my current job for 5 months at this point, and feel anything but safe at keeping it, but there isnt much i can do at the moment. feels fucking bad

[team filler]

take a coconut oil bath, bb

[daemon]

So I learned today that my friend that went briefly to jail passed away in February, after I digged a bit after seeing he wasn't replying in over a month. I'm devastated. I keep watching a clip  of us playing CSGO and crying as soon as his voice pops in.

[Bebpo]

 

Sorry for your loss daemon. Yeah, I've got no advice other than time will help and you'll always remember the good times you had with him.

[Oblivion]

alright boy, off to the doctor.

he seems knowledgeable but a little too aloof. hopefully he doesn't just send me away with a prescription for ibuprofin or whatever. 

either way, wish me luck!

[Mr Gilhaney]

Good luck m8, hope he doesnt cut it off.

So I learned today that my friend that went briefly to jail passed away in February, after I digged a bit after seeing he wasn't replying in over a month. I'm devastated. I keep watching a clip  of us playing CSGO and crying as soon as his voice pops in.

That sucks breh.

[Oblivion]

just got back.

he thinks it's an inflamed tendon and gave me a cortisone shot. i was a little scared to get it because i've already had 2 of them over the past year and a half, but he said under 3 should be fine. he told me to come back in 3 weeks if it doesn't work.

but i was a little heartened to see that he said he'll be doing more thorough testing because i shouldn't have these kind of problems at my age. so it looks like he's taking it seriously at least.

[Oblivion]

okay, not bad news, but just wanted to post in here for an update.

a week later, the cortisone shot seems to be working. i can flex my hand again now and can grab things (for the most part) without too much trouble. so that's great. but here's something even better.

so remember i said last time that it got worse? let's call that stage 2. it developed over the past month  or so, so fairly new. stage 1 however, less painful but stuck around a lot longer.

so it turns out that not only is stage 2 feeling waaaay better, i'm actually able to do some exercises and stretches that i couldn't even with stage 1! one of the exercises involved stretching a rubber band and it used to be so painful that even the tiniest bit of resistance was painful as fuck. i'm not exaggerating when i say that i couldn't even move it a single centimeter! that's how bad it was. but today, i was able to stretch it almost all the way through with ZERO pain!

it's still not anywhere near back to normal, but substantially better than it's been since...well, since i got injured in the first place. i almost hate to mention it cause i don't want to jinx it, but i haven't been this happy in a long, long time.

[Madrun Badrun]

I majorly fucked up my back - been bedridden since Sunday.  All I did was lift my leg onto the bathtub rim while getting out of the shower.  Man this sucks.  I actually called 911 for an ambulance because I couldn't stand up but they wouldn't take me due to covid.  I ended up getting prescription from a tele-doctor though and things have been getting a bit better each day. 

[Tasty]

My mom, sister and me put down the family dog today. He was about 14-15, so more than half of my life. He started out as my older sister's dog, before staying with my mom, and then since I moved back with my parent's a year and a half ago he's spent pretty much all his time with me (and my other dog, Sasha.)







My sisters and niece came over last night and I did a Google Photos presentation stretching back 10 years. (Started uploading to Picasa back in 2010, and all my photos are still right where they should be 10 years later, which is cool.)



I held his paw and felt his heartbeat fade. I'm a wreck. I've had a constant headache from crying the past three days after we made the decision. But now it's over at least.



Will be burying him on the family farm near our other deceased pets, and no disrespect to them and their marker-less graves, but he's getting a bigass cross and visits every day.



RIP Grendel, 2005 - 2020

[Madrun Badrun]

sorry buddy

[skullstorm]

Sorry Tasty 

Got me all teared up, my sister will have to put down her dog after the weekend because he's been having health issues since last fall and now it's gotten to the point that it can't really be treated anymore. He has good days and bad days but the bad days have become more frequent and they're more bad than the good days are good. He's only 8 years old 

I really, really love that dog so it cuts me up real bad. Even worse is that I haven't seen him since February because of the corona situation, I haven't seen any of my family since then and don't know when I will. So it's fucked up knowing he's going to die in a few days and I can't see him anymore. On the other hand, the last time I saw him he wasn't so sick yet and I got to dogsit him and have only good memories of that last encounter, I haven't had to see him in a bad state and won't have any heartbreaking memories of him suffering.

Still I wish I could have had a last cuddle and say goodbye. I hope dogs don't really have memories of people when they're not there and he won't even realize I haven't been there at all these last few months. I'd hate the idea of him thinking I've abandoned him. I don't think they're really capable of thinking like that, hopefully.