Hi all, 38F here, would love some advice or perspectives. Health history: healthy weight, chronic migraine controlled with Botox, low-dose gabapentin for sleep, and some minor and fluctuating autoimmune symptoms (UCTD). History of tendon issues - tendon and nerve RSI issues in arms that have been a problem for a decade, also tendonosis in glutes from weight lifting that still has minor symptoms after about 8 months of PT. Minorly hypermobile but EDS has been ruled out.
About two years ago, I woke up one day with terrible pain in my sit bone area on both sides. I had been doing yoga for a few years and “yoga butt” is a common injury - tho I was very careful about not overstretching, did strength training as well as yoga, and had not had any pain leading up to that morning. Sitting or stretching the hamstring triggers pain at the ischial tuberosity that will throb at night and can last for days. My walking capacity was also reduced.
I bagan PT with the diagnosis of proximal hamstring tendonopathy. I started with isometrics and working up to include a number of eccentric exercises. My sitting tolerance slowly increased (but not stretching). Things were going well.
Nine months later, I took a long weekend trip, driving five hours each way. I was nervous but had no pain on the way there or after the drive. No pain on the drive back either. But the next day I woke up with really bad pain.
We reduced my PT exercises and slowly worked back up. The left side recovered but the right never really did. I could sit for an hour at a time by arranging hand towels so that there was no pressure on the ischial tuberosity.
Despite PT that I did religiously (and I believe my PT is very skilled and knowledgable) it just didn’t improve. Last fall, a year and a half after the original injury, I started seeing a very highly regarded local ortho doc. Imaging showed tendonosis that looked mild with some calcifications.
We started with a cortisone injection to the bursa. I was very sore after and I could no longer sit upright even with my hand towel arrangement. That was November and I have not been able to sit properly upright without instant pain since then. Doc and I were surprised by this result. My workout capacity has never gone back up to what it was before this procedure.
In January we tried dry needling of the tendon. Doc said he could feel scar tissue as he did it which was a good sign it might help. Again soreness and no detectable improvement. Again had to reduce PT load and slowly try to work back up.
In April, we did PRP. My baseline soreness is increased since this procedure, my exercise capacity has seriously reduced, and my walking capacity (before pissing off the tendon) had reduced from about 10k to 5k.
Dr said PRP was the last option.
I am really disabled - I can’t sit at a restaurant or dinner table, I can’t drive more than about fifteen minutes, I can’t fly, I can’t work sitting, I have had to cancel important plans, and I’m just going to Zoom events so I can do them reclined. My professional and social life are very impacted. I also hurt my tricep tendons by the elbow working on a laptop reclined for a few weeks instead of at my ergo setup - they also don’t seem to be healing well even tho I’m completely using voice for computing now.
My PT (my most trusted person in this) suggested I don’t do more needle-based interventions for the leg and maybe try blood flow restriction therapy.
No one understand why my body had reacted as it has to these interventions, why I progress slowly in PT in general with all these injuries, why I am so prone to tendon injuries, or what to do next.
I’ll see the ortho again soon but he already told me there’s nothing he can offer after PRP. Would love your ideas or suggestions about what is wrong and how to fix it.

I have, since 2019, [url=https://www.reddit.com/conspiracy/comments/jq79fl/comment/gbkvka0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3]been quite vocal [/url], regarding the fact that we are in the first Bowl of God's Wrath and the final phases of the apocalypse are underway. Numerous prophetical texts from several religious systems, most notably the Book of Enoch and Revelation, support this notion. Long story short 2012 was a major sign post on the apocalyptic highway. For you, dear reader, the most relevant verse concerning the immediate future - and the subject of this post is:

" And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath upon the earth. And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image."

If you're ready then, let's explore...

The Mark of the Beast and How it Relates to Skin Disease!

To begin with we must DEFINE the mechanisms through which skin eruptions are made manifest. We are focusing on the most violent skin eruptions known to man - which will characterize the coming epidemic. To do so You MUST become literate in toxicology - the scientific study of poison - the art of the Serpent."

Let's figure out just what the serpents art is:

Numbers 21:

5 Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water!”
6 Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.
8 The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”

"Hezekiah broke into pieces the bronze snake known as Nehushtan Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had worshipped it through burnt offerings " 2King 18:4
Moses had originally told the Israelites to worshp Nehushtan to prevent death due to the flying "burning serpents" that infested the great and terrible place of the desert wilderness (Num.21:4-9; Deut.8:15). The Hebrew word for "poisonous" "Burning" as in the defining sensation of a snakebite, a feeling to which is compared God's wrath (Numbers 11:1). Isaiah indicates that these saraphs are comparable to vipers, worse than ordinary serpents and agents of the divine will (Isaiah 14:29).

"Interestingly, in Biblical Hebrew there is a fascinating strong etymological connection between the ‘Nachash’ and forbidden magics. The Biblical Hebrew word for ‘sorcery’ or ‘witchcraft’ is the SAME root as the word for ‘SERPENT’ – i.e. Nachash’! {נחש}

In Modern Hebrew, the old verb ‘Le-Nachesh’ {לנחש} – which meant ‘to make a witchcraft’ has shifted from it's original meaning to intend divination and guesswork. The word witchcraft called in the New Testament (pharmakeia) preserves the meaning of "applied toxicology" as it means to drug or poison - particularly as a tool of human sacrifice. This connection is revealed in the etymologically associated festivals of " Pharmakos -(Wikipedia)" - which was a ritual in which the undesirables of a community would be sacrificed as a cleansing and healing rite. In the Judaic tradition this is recalled on the day of atonement (Yom Kippur) where Azazel (Associated with Lucifer, the Serpent, the Morning Star) is symbolically sacrificed as a Sin Offering. The symbol of Nahushtan - the image of the snake on a pole - is utilized as the symbol of Pharmacy and Medicine to this very day with all the same meaning it held millenia ago.
This knowledge is the KEY to the LITERAL script which governs all human activities past present and future -, which has been revealed through various "Scriptures".
For example it describes how Satan the great deciever conquers all human structures of governance, and his methods of enslaving mankind.

Nahum 3:4 the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.
2Peter 2:3 Many shall follow the cunning deceits of the false prophets who scheme to promote suicidal fallacies; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. Driven by their lust for power they shall with feigned words make merchandise of you...
Rev 18:23 for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy pharmakaia were all nations deceived.

​
Now back to the skin sores; which are mentioned throughout the Bible. Think of the ten plagues that the Egyptians are hit with or the afflictions that strike the Phillistines after they steal the Ark - Deut 28:27 states simply regarding the transgressors against the LORD: "Yahweh will smite you with the Egyptian boils, with hemorrhoids, scars and itch from which you will never be healed - you will be stricken with permanent madness, blindness and confusion of mind. "
So, let's get back to how black magic involving DRUGGING/POISONING is involved in SKIN SORES.

"Cutaneous adverse drug reactions are unpredictable and include various diferent skin conditions of varying degrees of severity. The most concerning and dangerous are referred to as Drug Reactions with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS), severe cutaneous adverse reactions (SCARs), drug-induced hypersensitivity syndrome, and Stevens–Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). "

-From Mechanisms of Severe Cutaneous Adverse Reactions: Recent Advances
Did you catch that? Yes, the worst skin diseases in existence, typified by everything from whole body blisters to skin detachment, blindness, and permanent brain damage.... are due to drug reactions. Basically think of combining mentos and diet coke in a bottle - it's a fairly powerful little chemical reaction - only your body is the bottle and the candy and soda are a variety of different chemical poisons reacting together in your blood, which are forced out of your blood violently as pustules, nasty rashes, and sores. Basically all of these eruptions emerge due to a failure of the filtration organs, which normally prevent the mentos diet coke reaction from occuring. Once things combine that shouldn't the energy the reaction produces encourages more of the same sorts of reactions. Next thing you know, KABLAM - violent skin reaction!

Although not well understood, it is thought that inefficient drug detoxification leading to the accumulation of drug reactive metabolites causes autoimmune responses in skin and some internal organs.

So that's the 101 study of violent skin disease. You got your mentos, you got your coke, they combine in your blood. Now more on the ancient nature of this simple scientific truth:
Numerous examples exist of organized men working to together to harness the powers of "applied toxicology"... whether in regards to largescale warfare or assassination - or the preservation of food or human lives via medicine.. it's no stretch to say that toxicology and those who masterfully applied it are the single greatest maintainers and destroyers of human life- period.
The Spartans dammed whole rivers during sieges, filled the resulting lake with toxic poisons such as hellbore, and then reconnected the thirsty city to the water supply - the scheme resulted in the successful capture of the city... and one can assume that such tactics did not fall into disuse despite their relative rarity in the preserved history of the species.
Or the history of medical experimentation on the pooslaves (as Catherine de Medici was notorious for). Urban pollution falls also under this umbrella... powerful men for whome "owning mines and factories" is an ancient tradition... have been releasing tons of poisons into the ecosystems of human populations and observing the effects for some time (withholding, of course, their "trade secrets" from the toxified populace).
The ancient Egyptian priesthood would distill cyanide from peaches to assassinate dissidents and other threats to their hierarchy.
Or how about the venetian council of ten and their plot to saturate trade goods with arsenic and "the fluids distilled from the spleens of plague victims" in order to indiscriminately poison the turkish populations...
All of these arts are examples of black magic. And classically this was called witchcraft.
Skin eruptions and plagues generally are afflictions of mankind which David refers to as "the sword of the Lord" - AND ABSOLUTELY Yes, as the book of Exodus suggest, the capacity to generate plagues is a defining characteristic of the Biblical deity - and wherever we find humans transgressing against the will of "Jehova" or his prophets, we find a variety of disease afflicting them. Deuteronomy goes into great detail concerning the nature of this "curse" against his enemies.
SOLUBLE FAS LIGAND AND GRANULYSIN ______________________________ https://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/56172/2/Nao_Saito_review.pdf Here we find some evidence of the ability of this disease to be transferred cross species through humoral inoculation.
Something like "soluble factors conjunctiva"

Low N‐acetylating capacity in patients with Stevens‐Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis

. Our data suggest that causative drug exposure induces annexin A1 secretion induces FPR1 expression in keratinocytes, resulting in cell death

Analysis of skin-resident memory T cells following drug hypersensitivity reactions

EOSINOPHILIC SKINNERS T cells become TRM cells upon offending drug challenge post disease.
FROM . A major breakthrough arose from the discovery that specific HLA alleles predispose and, in most cases, appear necessary but not sufficient for the development of SJS/TEN and other SCAR upon exposure to particular drugss- which drugs interact with particular HLA/peptide/T-cell receptor (TCR) complexes on keratinocytes to trigger the adaptive immune response and adverse reactions
severe cutaneous adverse reaction (SCAR). It may have overlapping features with Stevens–Johnson syndrome / toxic epidermal necrolysis (SJS/TEN) and acute generalised exanthematous pustulosis (AGEP).

Proprotein convertase FURIN regulates T cell receptor …

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25926688
WebCollectively, our work confirms the hypothesis that the TCR-regulated protease FURIN plays an important role in T cell activation and that it can specifically modulate TCR-activated
Thus, our results indicate that furin is indispensable in maintaining peripheral tolerance, which is due, at least in part, to its non-redundant, essential function in regulating TGF-β1 production. Targeting furin has emerged as a strategy in malignant and infectious disease5,6. Our results suggest that inhibiting furin might activate immune responses, but may result in a breakdown in peripheral tolerance.

Well im like I don't know, a week sober. Most of my physical symptoms are gone except I still sweat like crazy just walking to the shop or whatever. Im not out of breathe or anything like that. Just sweating with low effort kinda stuff. No night sweats anymore either. I remember this being a thing the last time I went dry but can't remember when it stopped...annoying though. I feel pretty much fine apart from the mental side of things aside from this. Resonate with anyone?

So was recently prescribed Enclomiphene 25mg ED in order to help boost my low T levels. This was a transitional protocol from my HCG mono therapy which raised me from TT of (literally) 7 ng to 600 ng in about 6 months. Still though, i was left with some lingering symptoms and explored alternative options. Two weeks into the Enclo mono therapy and I'm getting some intense side effects such as: non-existent libido (was already bad, but much worse now : ED), extreme fatigue, terrible workout recovery & intense bodyljoint aches. However, I skipped a day of Enclo and already feel some of those sides fading away. What i'm wondering is should i try to only dose Enclo 3-4x a week (EOD) or am i better off stopping entirely and seeing how my body responds to removing all substances for a bit. Appreciate it

​

Proof

1/4g gold? ✅1g gold? ✅Small sterling necklaces that look great in multiples? ✅
All orders are insured by me. Free shipping on purchases over $500. Purchasing details are at the bottom of the post.
The necklaces, stamped 925, are from a local auction lot and I don't need that many. Weights vary within the amount stated in the heading.

💍 Sterling Necklaces 💍 - Weight is approximate (-0.25g / +0.75g) 

Price	Qty	Description
$8	12	5g - 1.2mm - 24"
$15	11	10g - 1.7mm - 24"

🏅 Gold 🏅 

Price	Qty	Description
$30	1	1/4 Gram Monarch Precious Metals Round - Horse Shoe
$83	11	1 Gram Geiger Gold Bars - Original Series
$238	1	2017 1/10oz Rooster Lunar Series II
$1090	1	1902-S $10 Cleaned with BU details Reverse

👑 🥈 Silver 🥈 👑 

2oz QB Completers are selling for $90+ each on eBay. Each one comes from a sealed monster box that I opened.

Price	Qty	Description
$24	1	Partial 1999 Silver Proof Set (Half, Dime, Nickle, and Penny)
$73	3	2021 2oz Queens Beast Completer no Capsule
$10.50	11	1/3oz Silver Shot Bottle
$29	3	1oz Silver Shot Bottle
$57	3	2oz Silver Shot Bottle
$30	5	1oz Silver Card (Can ship for $1.25 via risky shipping if wanted)
$295	3	Sealed Pack of 10 - 1oz Silver Cards

🇺🇸 Live Free Poured Silver 🇺🇸 as low as $28.90/oz 

Price	AR15
$70	#10 - 2.3 oz AR15
$76	#11 - 2.5 oz AR15
$76	#13 - 2.5 oz AR15

​

Price	Small 1911 / Big 1911🔫
$67	#20 - 2.2 oz 1911 🔫
$161	#11 - 5.3 oz 1911 🔫
$164	#13 - 5.4 oz 1911 🔫

​

Price	.223
$52	#16 - 1.7oz .223
$51	#17 - 1.7oz .223

​

Price	Paperweights - Crucible Breakers
$367	#13 - 12.7 oz (Can add hammered finish for $10)

🧱 3D Printed Multi-Tubes and Holders - Plastic Manufactured in the USA 🧱 

Maze Tubes for 90%
Multi-Tube Holders for 90%
Perth Mint Roll Pyramid Stackers

Please read the following:

• All metals are verified with my Sigma Metalytics machine. Pictures available upon request (1/10oz and up).
• Prices may be subject to market price changes if extreme enough.

Payment Options:

• I accept Zelle, Venmo, CashApp, and PPFF. For all payment methods, no text in the notes field, emojis only. Keep the transaction between friends; goods and services payments will be refunded (minus transaction fee) and cancelled.
• Willing to listen to reasonable offers. Asking what is my best price is not an offer, it's a fishing expedition. Please no low ball offers as they will be ignored.

Shipping:

• My personal insurance ends when the tracking number is marked delivered. Due to not having tracking, items shipped via risky shipping do not include insurance of any kind.
• I package and tape well. $5 Shipping for First Class up to 10 troy oz, $10 Priority after that. Extra services added at the buyers request and expense (signature, insurance).
• Can also ship via UPS.

For the literal three of you who followed me in case there was an update on the estate mess, this is for you. I posted a previous update in the comments. Short version: College fund wins. Family got a choice of I decline to inherit or accept and immediately transfer the asset to a family trust that people who want the thing can own/maintain as they see fit. They had until the end of this month to decide, which they did after a lot of whining and complaining about how they couldn't afford to take over responsibility - which I still say they could if they really wanted to. They decided not to go the trust route, so I had my lawyer send an official notification letter to the executor on Friday declining the inheritance. My job here is done. I will have no further involvement with the estate or the asset.
The response to this has been dramatic. My phone got blown up a lot in the last 48 hours. Do iPhones need vacations? If so, mine could use one. They apparently didn't think I'd ever do it, which is literally their problem now. I declined. I'm no longer part of the conversation except for the blame and recriminations.
The executor is trying to figure out how to make the asset part of Uncle's care trust and paid for out of it so everybody can keep using it for "free." It is Executor's kid who is having the life event where they want to use it, so that's a big part of the agenda there. My lawyer said this goes against the intent of the care trust as it would be a major liability that essentially drains the care fund without providing any value to Uncle. I do not yet know how this will resolve, but it looks super messy. I've been advised to stay far away from the asset and all discussions of this scheme. I'm doing that. Hopefully, they figure out something that's both legal and ensures Uncle is cared for properly.
So, that's it. We're going to lie low, screen calls, and hope this blows over eventually. Sorry it's not a more interesting or satisfying answer. The actual resolution of what happens to the asset is probably still a long way off, and now none of my business.

Hi. I am 33, 3 months post miscarriage and 6 months post birth control. I discovered I have Turner Syndrome as well as low AMH LEVELS, possibly Diminished Ovarian Syndrome. 6 weeks after going off BCP for 9 years, I developed night sweats and under arm day sweats. This lasted 2 weeks and then I was preg. All symptoms faded. I lost our baby girl at 7 weeks. Under arm sweating and night sweats started again 6 weeks later. The night sweats subsided but under arm sweating is on/off all day between hours of 10:30 AM-4:30 PM. Then it stops. I now have excessive back sweat and legs/behind knees while driving. This just started a few days ago. Please help me. I never sweat. Is this hormonal? Hyperhidrosis? Duradry doesn’t work for me. Trying Drysol soon and seeing Endo.

--- Table of Contents ---
Spring 4984, 9 Kuromoth, Spring Equinox
“Archmage, I thought you had already gone…” Brom’s voice, beyond Her door. She didn’t move, didn’t bother to look towards the closed portal. Had it been months or years since he'd last come to sit with Her?
“I will be leaving presently…” Archmage Morndancer’s cold voice answered. She squeezed tighter into Her little ball in the dark corner. It didn’t matter that he would be gone. He left the tower often, but it didn’t stop Her punishment. Even as the season turned from winter to spring, She'd stayed locked in Her room. With no books and no company. Occasionally being taken out to give samples in a lab completely separate from that of Her treasures. Only their yowls and barks from down the hall offering any comfort.
“It’s an important day, isn’t it, Archmage? Perhaps Sellon will pass the test.” Ran’s voice. Did he sound nervous? Her head tilted, just a little, towards the door. The half-circle of light from Her window did very little to banish the darkness of the room. She hadn’t bothered to light the candles. What was the point?
Morndancer scoffed, “Doubtful. Ronni didn’t manage it. And just as his sister before him, Sellon will join the Mages Guild whether he passes or not.” Sellon and Ronni, Archmage Morndancer’s children. She'd heard of them from Brom and Ran. So they were Mages as well. Perhaps they would be the ones to come take Her blood and cut Her hair in future. It didn’t matter. Nothing had ever mattered.
“But a Wizard-Cleric of Saint Bede might…”
“Enough.” Morndancer interrupted Brom, “Bede is no god, he wasn't even a decent Mage, he was and is a villain. We would not have this responsibility to save the world if he and his lot hadn’t doomed it.”
“Of course, Archmage, yes.” nervous feet shuffled outside Her door.
“Even now, Shaloon is trying to locate the next storm.” Morndancer continued his chastisement, “They come more frequently and destroy greater swaths of land. If we continue to be as useless as the other Talons, there will be no world left to save. So rather than waste your time on prayers to usurper gods, you had best refocus and redouble your efforts while we are away. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Archmage,” Brom and Ran said in unison.
“Good. And be sure to return those to the library when you have finished with them.” the hiss of fabric on stone accompanied the Archmage's exit.
Her door handle jingled, and Her head came up a fraction, but, “Wait…” Brom’s whisper. Silence followed, and She dropped Her head again, pressing her closed eyes into Her knees. Minutes passed, or was it hours? Did it matter? Maybe She would crawl into Her bed and try to sleep. Time passed faster that way. Or maybe She would just stay here in Her little ball in the corner.
“He should be gone by now…” Her lock clicked, and the door creaked open, but She didn’t bother to look up, “Goldy? Maybe She’s sleeping…” Brom whispered.
“Damn, it’s dark in here. Red, can we get a light?” She didn’t answer Ran’s request. What was the point? They would find Her and they would take Her for samples. She didn’t have to help them do it. “Grab the candle from the table, Brom. My hands are full.”
She could feel the life of a tiny flame beyond Her door. Felt it draw closer and enter Her room before it flickered and died. “Oh, Goldy… please don’t…” the shuffling of feet moving carefully in the darkness came closer. She tried to pull in tighter, tucking Her head against Her chest and letting Her now shoulder-length hair fall forward to further hide Her face.
They crouched at either side of Her, Brom setting the useless candle down to Her left with a soft ‘tink’ of brass on stone. Something much heavier was placed on Her right, the familiar scents of hardbound leather, paper, and ink… “We brought you some books, Red…”
She lifted Her head, looking through the tangled strands of golden hair and seeing a pair of worried faces looming in the dark. “If you light up the room a bit, we can read,” Brom slowly pushed Her hair back, careful not to touch Her skin. As though She would burn him. She might have. If She could find the energy.
“You’re not supposed to...” Her voice crackled from lack of use, making Her whisper even more inaudible.
“What?” Ran leaned closer, but She didn’t repeat Herself, “It’s been months, Red. You’re not in trouble anymore.”
She blinked silently at him.
“Look, Goldy,” Brom shuffled forward, still in his crouch, “things can go back to normal now. The Archmage will be out for a few days. We can take you to play with the animals tomorrow.” She shifted Her blank stare to him. Brom waited for a moment, searching Her face for a familiar flicker of excitement. She didn’t give it to him. He sighed, “We’ll leave these with you then. You can read them when you’re ready.”
Brom made to stand, but She grabbed the hem of his sleeve, “Stay with me…” On the candle, the smallest of lights began to flicker to life. Brom sat down with a groan, and on Her other side, Ran plopped down even less gracefully.
He leaned his back against Her bed and picked the top book off the small pile they'd brought Her, “We can stay until lunch, Goldy.”
“But we still have a lot of work to do…”
It was enough. The candle burned brighter, and She shifted Her legs down, taking the book Ran passed to Her. Things would finally be returning to normal. As they always had been, and as they always would be.
***
Shon woke long before the kitchen servant would come to fetch him. Everything was the same, and yet nothing would ever be as it was before. Sitting up, he ran his fingers through his hair, only to realize that everything wasn't the same. The other two boys who'd reached maturity were also awake. It looked like Gaven hadn’t slept at all, his sandy hair tousled and his dark eyes bloodshot.
“This is it then… the last morning in the dorms?” Gaven whispered the useless question. Nan, the oldest by a month, nodded in silence. Shon didn’t bother with even that much, swinging his legs off the bed and kicking something. Another difference. A final gift from the Church. A leather pack for him to carry everything he owned.
Shon dressed in silence only broken by the shuffle of the other two joining him. After tying his boots, he started packing the bag. It was large enough to fit all of his clothes and even his seven journals, though the eighth made it a very tight fit.
“Should we make the beds?” Nan whispered. Again, Shon didn’t answer. Instead, he stripped the blanket and sheets from the mattress, folding them neatly and placing them with the pillow at the foot of the bed.
“Yeah… they'll have to strip them to wash anyway…” Gaven said, following Shon’s example.
They'd just finished when the door creaked open. Normally woken by the morning bells, Gaven and Nan both jumped, looking from the dark window to the door then at each other.
The servant girl who usually woke Shon looked in on them with some confusion, then hummed in understanding before holding the door open for them, “Come on then. There may be some leftover dessert you can have while we make breakfast…”
Shon doubted he could eat anything at the moment. His stomach worked itself in knots that put an uncomfortable pressure on his heart that in turn seemed as though it wanted to beat its way into his throat. The entire sensation made him feel a strange sort of nauseous. Nan and Gaven looked no better than he felt, and they both swallowed before exiting the room. Gaven took a moment to look back over his shoulder before shaking himself and setting his eyes forward. Nan seemed to rush from the room, too afraid to look back. Shon took one last look around before following, the door clicking closed behind them.
He let the other boys walk ahead of him and wondered what they were thinking. Gaven would be taking the test with him today, but Nan had been selected to join the Masons Guild and had opted to accept the offer right away rather than try for one of the divine orders first. Perhaps Nan was the smartest of them.
“We'll miss you…” the servant girl whispered so only Shon could hear, “It isn’t glamorous, but it’s honest work... if you want to join the Servants Guild…” the Servants Guild was a loose association of otherwise privately employed cleaners and cooks. It was the last choice for orphans, but also their most common destination. She'd meant the offer as a kindness, so Shon nodded in thanks, though nothing but the most desperate situation would ever see him join.
The head cook looked up as they entered the kitchen, nodding in understanding, “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked Nan and Gaven, who mumbled incoherently in response. To Shon, the cook smiled, offering only a silent nod.
The girl who'd reached maturity with them was already in the dining room, staring mournfully at a plate of hastily scrambled eggs and a few cookies from the night before.
“Hey Lara, couldn’t sleep anymore either?” Gaven asked with a strained smile. Shaking her head, she picked up her fork and tried to force down some of the breakfast. She'd been accepted into the Tailors Guild, but unlike Nan, had chosen to take the test with Shon and Gavin. Just in case.
The cook himself brought the boys their plates of eggs and cookies, and they ate in silence until the morning bells sounded. The three unused to being up early jumped at the sound, exchanging nervous looks. Their juniors and the priests would come flooding in soon, laughing and talking and enjoying another breakfast with friends and the closest thing they had to family. It would be the last time the four of them ate with the others in this room.
Shon didn’t know if he could take the bustle today, even if it was the last. Or maybe because it was. He stood, taking his mostly full plate and returning it to the kitchen. The cook looked from the untouched food to Shon and back again, then picked up a pair of cookies and held them out to him, “You might not be able to eat now, but you can save these for after.”
Shon took the gift, meeting the cook's eyes and nodding in silent thanks. The cook returned the nod and Shon left the kitchen without looking back. He slipped the cookies into one of the side pockets of his new pack as he made his way to the courtyard. He passed the bathroom, its wall lined with low-hanging sinks and a single long mirror. He'd practiced arching his eyebrows in that mirror...
Entering the courtyard, Shon hesitated, remembering his first early morning. When he couldn’t sleep for excitement at the mere possibility of training with a real adventurer. He'd wanted to learn to fight, but more than that, he'd wanted to learn how to train. After all, he would be doing a lot of that once he joined the Temple. It would be helpful to have a head start… Or, that's what he'd told himself back then.
Shon shut the door with a click of finality that rang in the still morning air. To his left were the classrooms where the city's children took lessons. Just thinking about his last lesson, with only those coming of age, still made him blush. To his right was the door to the chapel, where he'd sat with the other orphans through the weekly sermons. Shon respected the god of life and healing, but Soleil had never been his patron. Across from him was the clinic, where the Clerics of Soleil saw to the needs of the sick and injured. He'd only been sent there once, after breaking his arm trying to climb the tree in the courtyard.
Shon would have no need to pray to Soleil specifically, and the Temple kept their own clinic... if he passed. If he didn't... There was a chance he would see the clinic again, perhaps the chapel...
Shon stepped off the walkway surrounding the central tree, and a familiar voice sounded from its roots, “Feeling up to a few exercises?” Master Veon-Zih asked, rising from his cross-legged seat in one fluid motion. Shon stopped in their little clearing and nodded, letting his pack slide off his shoulder and flop heavily to the ground. “I take it there's nothing fragile in there then?” Veon-Zih asked with a chuckle.
The idea that a thirteen-year-old would have something valuable or fragile enough to break just by dropping the bag finally pulled Shon all the way out of his contemplations. He arched a skeptical eyebrow at his master.
“There, that’s more like it. You looked like a rather well-preserved zombie.” Veon-Zih took Shon by the shoulder, shaking him, “Not a thought in your head, or skip in your step.”
Shon shook his head, sinking into his horse stance to start his drills. He punched with his left fist first, and Veon-Zih took position just out of reach, so Shon’s knuckles barely brushed the fabric of his tunic. Shon held the position until Veon-Zih also threw his first punch. He aimed for Shon’s face, sending a wave of air and ki over his skin and nearly touching his nose. Shon didn’t flinch.
They worked through their punches in unison, nearly touching but never quite connecting. Shon worked in silence for a while then said, “Too many thoughts…”
“And none of them new, I’m sure,” Veon-Zih commented.
Shon nodded, “The same ones circle again and again. Even though I can’t do anything about them... yet.”
“Not until after the test.”
Shon had to swallow a sudden lump in his throat and nodded again, unable to speak even if he'd wanted to.
Veon-Zih moved on to the next strike, and Shon copied him. He'd lost count of the punches but followed his Master's lead. “I don’t suppose you want to talk about it?” Master Veon-Zih asked.
Shon shook his head but then sighed. Most people seemed to like thinking out loud, especially when troubled. He didn’t understand why, but his usual quiet contemplation wasn’t working, so maybe… “If I don’t pass…”
“I would think of all days, today would be the one to take a break!” Father Branston called from the chapel door. He began strolling towards them with a broad smile, “Do you think you’ll be done in time to join me?”
Was it time already? Shon glanced around, noticing Nan, Gaven, and Lara approaching from the living quarter, all looking pale, their lips drawn in tight unsmiling lines.
Veon-Zih hadn’t come up from his stance, so neither did Shon, but the Monk did laugh, “Keeping a routine can be soothing in times of great change.” he winked at Shon, “Even if it’s a positive change.”
Shon tried to smile at Veon-Zih’s apparent show of faith but wasn’t sure if he'd managed it. What if…?
“Well, I don’t want to rush you. Can I trust you to get Shon to the Chapel on time if I take the others now?” Father Branston laughed as though he'd said something particularly humourous, his great belly bouncing with mirth.
“We'll be there.” Master Veon-Zih assured Father Branston, and Shon nodded mutely, resuming his drills and trying not to watch the others leave. “We have plenty of time,” Veon-Zih whispered, “Take a few deep breaths. It's the end of your childhood, not your life.”
They moved from drills to kata. Master Veon-Zih stayed in front of Shon, moving with him and matching his routine strikes with the appropriate counters. “You were saying?” it had been awhile since Shon had tried to speak, though his head continued to spin with the half-formed thoughts.
“I don’t want to think about not passing,” Shon said, kicking high and hitting Veon-Zih’s waiting arm.
“Do you believe such thoughts will jinx you?”
Shon dropped his kick and punched as the kata dictated. Veon-Zih was right; working through their regular routines did seem to help calm his pounding heart. “I don’t know… Maybe? It’s stupid, though. Whether I pass or not was decided when I was born. It won’t change just because I think about it.”
“Emotions are rarely logical.” Veon-Zih smacked Shon’s punch aside at the last moment, and Shon moved smoothly from that strike to the next, “It’s normal to be nervous. One of your peers is just as nervous, and he already knows where he’s going.”
“They all do…” Shon mumbled, snap kicking straight in front of him, confident in his Master’s speed to dodge and counter.
Veon-Zih did indeed dodge, but instead of the usual counter he hooked Shon’s foot with his own and tried to pull him off balance. Shon only stumbled for a moment, shifting his form to a different kata and counter, his body moving before his mind could catch up. Veon-Zih spoke as they continued the different form without finishing the first, prompting, “Even those taking the test have other plans, just in case?”
“Lara was accepted by the Tailors, and Gaven is going to enlist in the guard…” They had sped up the pace, and Shon needed to concentrate, now on edge in case Master Veon-Zih decided to shift the practice again. A few more strikes in, the Monk dropped below Shon’s punch and swung at his ribs, forcing Shon to block. Shon switched the kata to his most recent on instinct, using the block to redirect the punch rather than stop it as the original kata would have dictated.
Veon-Zih smiled, his eyes twinkling at the move as he picked up the pace even further, “Both of those are honest jobs and noble callings.” Shon could only grunt in response, now moving too fast for him to think of anything but the exercise. Veon-Zih continued, “The enlisted make up the bulk of Hengist’s armies, and their loyalty is admirable. The Tailors Guild not only clothes the populace but often creates beautiful works of art that serve to enhance the natural beauty of the human form.”
The Master hadn’t even broken a sweat, but Shon had to gasp out, “But I don’t-” before he was interrupted by another unexpected punch. He countered but then disengaged, breathing deep and slow, “What will I do? If I don’t pass? I thought about joining the enlisted too but…” but the idea of being so close, and yet so impossibly far from his failed dream, pained him in a way he couldn’t put into words.
When Shon didn’t continue, Veon-Zih asked, “Will you reconsider joining me then?”
Shon blinked at the Monk, his eyes going wide. He'd thought he'd lost his chance with the Monastery when he'd denied Veon-Zih for the Temple three years ago, “You mean you'll still take me?” he stammered out.
Veon-Zih closed the distance between them and placed a firm hand on Shon’s shoulder, “So long as you are an obedient and willing student, remember?”
Shon’s eyes burned and another lump rose in his throat, preventing him from speaking. He nodded, and Veon-Zih smiled, turning away from him so Shon could rub his eyes without the Monk seeing. He still wasn’t comfortable with the thought of failing, but he felt a little more at ease, knowing he wouldn’t be alone even if he did.
“Shall we go then?” Veon-Zih scooped up Shon’s pack and held it out to him, “Destiny awaits no man.”
***
The Grand Chapel was dedicated to all the gods of the kingdom, and though today it was closed to the public, the doors were still crowded with families from every walk of life. Merchants and craftsmen mingled excitedly with one another while their children nervously awaited the start of the test that would determine the trajectory of the rest of their lives. A smaller group of only two families stood apart from the throng. Dressed in fine clothes and protected by private guards, the nobles surveyed the commoners with a detached air as though above the gods themselves. The boy Shon often saw at the Temple was among them.
Shon stopped just outside the crowd, arching his neck to try and see the doors. His quiet dread had turned to jitters of nervousness as he and Master Veon-Zih walked through the city. He wasn’t sure if he'd wanted to run or stop moving altogether. Now that they were here, he tried to distract himself by studying the faces and movements of those gathered. Though if he tried to draw them now, the shaking of his hands would probably make the pictures impossible to decipher.
The differences between the nobles and commoners, in particular, caught his eye. One of the nobles, a man of middling years, wore long robes with a high collar buttoned tight to his neck and looked as if he would rather be anywhere but here. Shon had just finished scanning up the man’s robes when their eyes met. A shiver, entirely unrelated to the general anxiety of the test, ran down his spine.
The noble’s eyes went wide, and he started for Shon, the edge of the crowd giving way for him like the sea before a ship. “You…” his voice was breathy, and he reached out. Shon stepped back and ran into Master Veon-Zih, “They are back, truly?” the strange man asked, his eyes fixed on Shon who could only stare in bewilderment.
“My good lord Morndancer!” Father Branston’s joy-filled greeting sounded from the side, “So your youngest has come of age has he?” the Abbot seemed to snap the noble from his focus, and he turned away from Shon as Branston made his way through the crowd, Lara and Gaven close behind.
“Yes, Abbot.” Morndancer surveyed the Cleric with what Shon could only describe as contempt, though the look hardly wiped the wide smile from Branston’s face, “Will we be starting soon? Sellon and I have business with the Mages Guild.”
“Though if young Sellon should find himself capable…” Branston started, but the noble snorted. “Ah well, to each their own.” Branston finished, turning away from Morndancer to address his young charges.
From a pouch on his belt, Father Branston pulled forth three small books that shouldn’t have been able to fit in the little bag, “I present to you, your papers.” He fanned the books out before him, and each of them took the one closest to them. They were bound in leather with the seal of the Kingdom of Daanlin embossed on the cover. The knight on the kingdom seal rode a horse and held a shield with the seal of Clearhelm on it, three tall pine trees in front of a snow-capped mountain.
Their papers were proof of their citizenship and would serve as a record of their lives and accomplishments. Master Veon-Zih had shown Shon his own papers months before. It held a record of every border he had ever crossed and every teleport he had ever taken, as well as proof of all of his adventures and every job performed for any of the kingdom’s organizations. Veon-Zih’s papers were a veritable tome compared to Shon’s meager notebook. Opening it to the first page, Shon saw his name followed by his presumed place and date of birth. It detailed that he had been raised in the Church in Smildna and when he had come of age. At the bottom was a place labeled but left blank for the date and results of today’s test…
Branston was still speaking to them, but Shon only partly registered the words, “You should keep your papers on you whenever possible. You will need them to reenter the city any time you leave…”
Veon-Zih placed a hand on Shon’s shoulder, and he nearly jumped out of his boots in surprise. Leaning down, the Monk whispered in his ear, “Soon this book will be full of your adventures and accomplishments. Regardless of what happens today.”
“Abbot,” Morndancer interjected as Father Branston finished his explanation, “the test? Some of us have places to be.”
“Yes, yes, patience is a virtue, my dear Lord Morndancer. The sun will rise no faster with you tapping your foot at its pace.” he lowered his voice and continued to address the anxious children, “I am so very proud of all of you. Know that no matter what is discovered today, the light of Soleil will always shine with joy at what you have and will accomplish in your lives.” Shon wondered if any of the adults realized that their constant efforts to comfort their nerves seemed to be having the opposite effect. Shon’s palms were sweating as he closed his papers, and he had to wipe them on his pants to try and distract himself from his pounding heart.
“Follow me,” Branston turned away, walking through the middle of the crowd that had suddenly grown hush at his movement towards the door. Veon-Zih gave Shon one last pat, then slipped Shon’s pack from his back and tossed it over his own shoulder. Letting his student know without words that he would be waiting for Shon to return, one way or another.
Shon could feel the eyes of the noble Morndancer boring into him as he followed Father Branston through the throng towards the Grand Chapel. What was that man's problem? Who was back? Shon was too distracted by the test to dwell on it, but the man had made his skin crawl, and having him at his back wasn’t helping his nerves.
Father Branston turned to address the crowd as the doors began to swing open, “The testers will enter alone and present their papers to the clerks by the door. Families and friends may wait outside until the test is complete.” Nervous adolescents made their way forward, careful not to jostle one another, many accepting last-minute hugs and well wishes from their families.
Shon thought he remembered the Grand Chapel well from his visit almost six years ago, but was struck again by the beauty of its art. The masterwork statues and carvings were outshone only by the stained glass dome that painted the round floor in bright light of every color he could imagine.
Of the ten gods, eight representatives stood opposite the doors, waiting quietly while the testers handed their papers to the clerks and shuffled nervously in the middle of the majestic holy site. Neither the Temples of Horsa nor Saint Giorgos were present. Their absence wasn’t surprising. The Temple of Saint Giorgos only took those of noble birth and would give their tests separately, and the Temple of Horsa was openly shunned in Clearhelm, its only branch located in the capital city of Tarorn.
Shon handed one of three clerks his papers. She took them with only a glance, hastily scribbling Shon’s name on a long list before handing the book to one of the others who wrote the date in the spot allocated. By the time all the testers had filtered in, there were about twenty young boys and girls huddled in the center of the room.
The Cleric of Hengist, in robes of white and blue, stepped forward to address them. “You are gathered here today in the hopes of being chosen to serve. To serve the province, the kingdom, and most importantly, the gods. But before the gods can choose you to act as their divine hands and voice, you must train and study hard their tenants and virtues. And before even that, your body must be able to hold and direct their power. For a feather that cannot hold ink will never be a quill. This is not a test of your worth but of your natural, innate ability.”
As he spoke, two other Clerics, Father Branston of Soleil and a female in the colors of Lune, stepped forward, each holding something round covered with a dark cloth. The Cleric of Hengist continued, “Very few are born with the capacity to touch the divine, there is no shame in failing.” the Clerics of Soleil and Lune removed the protective coverings and everyone had to shield their eyes from the brilliant light that flared in Father Branston’s hand.
Squinting as his eyes adjusted, Shon could just make out an orb glowing in a bowl in the Abbot’s hands. The Cleric of Lune held a similar sphere, though it appeared dead beside the brilliance of the other. “When we call your name, you will touch the empty vessel,” the Cleric of Hengist gestured towards the unlit stone, “and then you will touch the vessel filled with divine magic,” with his other hand, he gestured towards the light. “Do not hold the stone for longer than a moment. If your body is unable to channel the magic it could do serious harm,” he warned.
“Trase,” one of the clerks called from the door, reading off the list they'd compiled. A tall boy stepped forward on shaking feet. He approached the Clerics, who nodded solemnly, all encouraging smiles gone. Reaching out, he touched the unlit orb, then with a deep breath, reached for the glowing vessel.
Nothing happened. Trase pulled his hands back, and Branston whispered -though all could hear in the stillness of the room- “It’s alright lad, you may go…”
“Anhala,” the clerk called, and a girl jumped before rushing forward to try.
The first six failed before a girl named Gena reached shaking hands to the orbs. As her fingers brushed the light vessel, the dead sphere in her other hand began to glow. She gasped, holding tight to both globes, now both shining brightly.
“Congratulations, my dear, you may choose an order…” the Cleric of Hengist gestured to the altars around the Chapel. Gena pulled her hands back slowly, and the unlit stone died once again. Shon watched as she walked to the altar of Soleil to await the end of the test before beginning her life as an adept in training at the Church.
“Shaclin Ebonheart,” the noble boy Shon often saw at the Temple stepped forward, rubbing his hands on his pants before reaching for the orbs. Nothing. He held on, and Father Branston gently removed the boy’s fingers from the light orb. Shaclin pulled away sharply, clutching his hand to his chest and whimpering. His skin had grown red and blistered.
“I’m sorry…” the Cleric of Hengist whispered.
Shaclin turned away without a word and strode for the door, still clutching his burned hand, silent tears staining his cheeks.
I won’t cry… I won’t… “Shon,” Shon closed his eyes, imagining himself in the Temple chapel with its calm silence and soothing scent of incense. He could almost smell it when he opened his eyes and moved forward.
Time slowed down… it took hours to reach the Clerics. Days to raise his hand to touch the dark orb. Now that he was closer he saw that they were actually crystals, tumbled into perfectly smooth spheres. His palm covered the dead stone, and it felt cool, as though it had just been dug from the ground by adventurous children. He reached for the stone bathed in light, feeling the warmth radiate off it before he even made contact. It wasn’t nearly hot enough to burn, and yet Shaclin’s hand had shown blisters.
Shon touched the stone. The warmth filled his fingers and crawled up his arm. It flooded his body like a vessel being filled with water before flowing out his other arm and down his hand. The dead stone came to life, its coolness replaced by the warmth of the divine magic, using him as its conduit connecting the two.
“Congratulations, son, you may choose an order…”
Time sped back up, and Shon let his hands slide off the stones. “Congratulations,” Father Branston echoed, nodding towards the altar of Hengist, “The rest is up to you.”
Only two others passed the test. A girl with long auburn hair and green eyes had joined the Temple with Shon, and a boy had gone to the Church of Saint Bjarki. They stood by their respective altars as the last of the failed testers left the Chapel. Gaven and Lara managed strained smiles at Shon as they left. He attempted to return them but wasn't sure if he'd managed it. The eight Clerics all breathed sighs of relief as the last left, and Branston and the Cleric of Lune returned the covers over the stones. Though still lit by the light through the colored dome, the Chapel seemed so much darker without the divine light to fill it.
“Four this year! An entire fifth!” the Druid of Cathbad exclaimed, her brown and green robes rustling as she danced in place.
“Yes, quite remarkable. Twice the average.” the Cleric of Saint Bede agreed. Though he resisted dancing for joy.
The Cleric of Hengist was also smiling broadly, though when he spoke, it was to the kids, “You may spend the afternoon with your families. Report to your chosen order before sixth bell.”
The girl who also joined the Temple of Hengist, Daisy, gave Shon a warm smile and hurried with the others to retrieve her papers. Now marked with their status as divine conduits. Shon walked behind them, his nervousness replaced with excited anticipation. He felt somehow full and empty all at once. With one door open, another had closed...
Shon stepped into the morning light to find the crowd had cleared. Only the three families of his fellows remained, hugging and kissing their children in joy. “We shall have a feast fit for the King!” Daisy’s father exclaimed, lifting her into the air as if she were no more than five. Shon’s stomach growled.
“Hungry?” Veon-Zih asked, stepping out from beside the door and presenting Shon with his pack. Shon felt his cheeks go red, and Veon-Zih laughed, rubbing his own belly, “I could use some lunch myself.”
Hastily Shon dropped his pack and rifled through the outside pockets, finding the cookies in the last one left to check. They were cracked and crumbled in some places, but he held one out to Veon-Zih regardless.
The Monk took it with a bow, “I am trying to resist being disappointed.” he confessed as Shon eagerly shoved his own broken cookie in his mouth.
He nearly choked, and Veon-Zih patted his back hard, not helping. Shon managed to swallow, then stammered, “Master, I…”
Veon-Zih interrupted with a laugh loud enough to fill the empty entryway, “Just promise me you won’t let your new studies dull your old. I plan on testing you with each visit.”
"Visit?" Something Shon couldn’t name filled his chest with warmth reminiscent of the divine light, "Test? You..." He thought he might burst with barely contained hope. No one could be so blessed... "You'll still train me?" Shon asked.
“I happen to be good friends with one of your future teachers at Hamerfoss.” Veon-Zih stated for the first time, “I’m sure he'll welcome my visits. If you'll have me…”
Shon didn’t have words for an answer. Instead, he lunged forward, wrapping Veon-Zih in the first and only hug he could remember giving anyone.
--- Table of Contents ---
All comments and communication are welcome and wanted.

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/Kz8a4YB with album included too
Hey all, it's been a couple years and I'm trying to sell some stuff before a big move. I'm not super up-to-date on state laws, but I will check your state's laws before shipping any items to make sure we are 100% legal and above-board.
I take Paypal G&S or FF or venmo. I'll ship the cheapest option, all prices are shipped to CONUS. Priced low to move things quickly. I'm only open to offers on bundles OR if you send me a recent comp sale that's cheaper.
Please comment and/or PM, I won't see reddit chat messages.
​

1. SB Tactical folding adapter - only works with non-functional buffer tubes (not an AR). I used to have this installed on a Kriss Vector. $75
2. Burriss Fastfire 3 red dot - works well, comes with box and tools. Used to have this installed on Kriss vector with a little rail riser block thing. Will throw in rail riser block for free (with this item or any item honestly) if you can use it. $90
3. Cheap buffer tube, I think milsepc? I used to have a SBA3 on this, so whatever size that is. $20 on its own, or $10 in a bundle
4. QTY 11 PSA branded alumnium 30 rd AR mags, all date stamp March 2019. $9 each, or $85 for them all (I think this is a good price shipped, but let me know if I'm off here)
5. Leather Glock 43 IWB holster, with 2 magazine holsters. Honestly, just pay shipping and I'll round it up to the nearest $5 for my trouble.
6. De Santis pocket holster for Glock 43 (I think), should be this guy. Honestly, just pay shipping and Ill round it up to the nearest $5 for my trouble.
7. Little trigger holster thing for Glock 43 - either pay shipping like items 5-6, or I'll throw this in free with any purchase.
8. Kydex Glock 19 IWB/OWB holster. I feel like this might have been made by a regular person, I think I bought it on here years ago, not sure if it's a brand or what. $25
9. Gatcrank - silly little fun toy, this is an older version. $20

For over a year and some months, I (21F) have been dating a guy that is a few years older than me. It was my first long-term or even serious relationship. We both came into it with past relationship issues; I was groomed by multiple people since I was around 7, and he had just come out of an emotionally and financially abusive relationship. We talked a lot in the beginning about whether or not we were a good idea. I was so hesitant to trust, but he was so sweet and said the most lovely things. I knew we were an odd match but I was stupidly hopeful with how beautiful, fun, and safe our relationship became for me. Truthfully it's just because my bar is that low. I've never had anything that felt that amazing, even if it might've been more bad than good in the end.
I think he's a great guy, but a terrible boyfriend. At my birthday party, a couple months after we made things official, he got upset with me for not paying him enough attention and left to drink with his friends. He was my ride home that night and we were over an hour from my house. He gave me a life-long STI a month after that. My symptoms were traumatic, but I genuinely believed him when he said he didn't know he was a carrier, especially because it's something that usually can't be caught in regular testing and he doesn't remember ever showing symptoms in his life (it might be easy to guess which one). He hid relevant things about his emotionally abusive ex from me (they were still emotionally intimate months into his and my relationship), and got angry at me when I found out and tried to ask for more information. He told me it was better to hide things from me, for my own sake, and that everytime I ask a question, I'm hurting myself on purpose. He praised me a lot in the beginning for not being a party person and said that he admired that I don't partake. The real reason I don't party is just because I can be triggered by alcohol and drugs and by being around those using them. He would constantly bring me to situations where I would be pressured by his family and friends to drink, and he would get upset if I didn't go with the flow and act more chill. He would never even tell anyone else to stop asking me to drink, although everyone knows I'm trying my hardest to be sober. I told him all about my trauma, multiple times. He told me he empathized with me and understood. Yet, I was left alone every time. I felt like I had to fend for myself when I should have had a partner's support. I'm a highly emotional person, but I would not call myself angry. My friends tell me I am a kind and patient person, but I know they are biased. He called me angry often, whenever I tried to express myself to him. I tried writing it out instead of coming at him verbally, tried giving space and time so that I could detach from the situation, and I tried directly asking him how he wanted me to approach having any issues with our relationship. He would basically just tell me to stop poking the bear. Ultimately, there was never a fix. I spent so many nights crying myself to sleep, riddled with anxiety, wondering what I did wrong, and why he was now treating me the way he was when he would be so gentle before and after. My siblings, who are basically my only family, told me to let him go. My best friends expressed that they were hurt from watching my pain. He broke up with me a few weeks after New Year's because I asked him if he could text me more regularly when we're apart. He slept with someone else that night, I think. Just a couple days later, he wanted to get back together again, he said that I was his everything. I let him back in a few weeks later because I caved, I really really wanted to believe him. I couldn't hold my ground. He didn't tell me he had slept with someone else until right before we were going to sleep together again, and although he had weeks, he hadn't even gotten tested yet. The lack of sexual safety was baffling— especially because just three months prior I was literally bed-ridden from what I had caught from him. It hurt, I cried, but I forgave him.
He would be so sweet on me, pamper me, and say all the things I wanted to hear. It's a silly point, but he's also the only guy who has ever taken time to make me finish in the bedroom and be completely focused on me, especially without giving up if I "took too long". It would be weeks after the fact, but he began to acknowledge and apologize to me for being unfair in certain situations and for hurting me. He told me he would do better. I made him describe actionable things he would do to show me change. He came up with options on his own as I didn't want to feed all of the ideas to him. He told me I was his safe space and all that he wanted, that he could see a future with me. I was suicidal for most of my youth, I still can't imagine my own future. It was so beautiful when he would describe what we could have together. Recently, we even foolishly started talking about kids. Nothing serious, just what we thought would be nice. I became friends with his mom. She was very sweet to me, and called me her daughter; she doesn't have one of her own and I don't really have a relationship with my own mother so I felt so special and good. We were making plans to travel together again as we did last year. I felt so hopeful, and it was so foreign to me. I really thought we could grow together. But he never did any of the things he told me he would, to show me that he would do right by me. It was all talk. For months. Yesterday, he explicitly went against what he told me he would do. Even earlier in the morning on that very day, I told him what I needed of him, to feel respect and safety. He said he wanted that for me too, he assured me multiple times. That night, he did the opposite of what he said he would. It always happens when alcohol is involved. He brought me out to a new place, and then he left me anxious and alone. He even said he was sorry for what he was doing even as he continued to do it. I called him, wanting him to come back for me, and I told him it hurt. He told me that I needed to stop making everything about me, and that he was tired of me making problems in his life. I told him I couldn't handle him walking all over me anymore and blocked him on everything. It's over. Again. Hopefully for real this time.
I feel so immensely relieved yet so anguished at the same time. This might be the first time I have seriously enforced a boundary in my life. It's horrible. I feel so stupid. I forgave him so many times and believed him when he said he loved me and wanted to do right by me. I believed him when he told me he was so serious about me and that he would do anything for me. In my sick codependency, I truly believe I would do those things for him, and that if I would then he would. I tried so hard to be a good girl for him. It wasn't enough, my love and my self were not enough. I think that we were just never going to work. He abandoned me again, this time explicitly acknowledging what he was doing and how he didn't care that it hurt me. I don't know how I can still be so childish and naive. Many times when there was an opportunity to do so, he would show me again and again that he did not respect me. I just looked past it and focused on this love that I had never experienced before in my life. It was enough, I told myself. Everytime he left me, stonewalled me, and became upset with me for trying to talk about my feelings, I would remind myself over and over that he loves me. Even my therapist said that our love seemed powerful. I question now if he really cared about me. It hit me like a brick last night when I realized his disregard for me and my wellbeing is not at all what I want in my future. I feel sick at all that I made myself endure during this relationship. I'm an adult now and I should know better. I can't say that I was a child like I could about my past. I could forgive myself for being a child, but I don't know about this. I fucked up. I guess I really wasn't a good girlfriend either. I am toxic and a handful; maybe he did love me, but grew to hate how I couldn't make myself fit into his life no matter how hard I tried. I don't know. I'm so weak and it's pathetic. I just can't stop crying and spiralling into myself. I know it's my fault, and I wish so badly that I would be better than this. I wish I could just be thankful that I got to experience love, that I had a brief motherly relationship, and all the beautiful things we did together. I can't. I'm so crushed at being reminded that that life and that love is not for me. I don't know if it can ever be for me. I'm already having to fight myself to stay firm in my stance, I don't want to allow myself to let him back in again. Maybe, hopefully, he has really given up on me and lost interest this time. We had dates planned together. Luckily we didn't book anything for our travel plans yet. A disgusting part of me wishes they could still happen, that we could magically have a healthy relationship and stay in love. I'm just way too weak. I wish I could undo it all if it meant not feeling this turmoil in the aftermath. I hate myself, and my body is changed forever. I know logically this is for the best, that it will get better, that I will get past this like I have with everything else in my life, but it just feels like I won't. I feel frozen in my room, I miss him, and it hurts. I am so very lucky to have amazing friends, who offered lots of support when they are available, but I still feel so alone. I'm tired, and I'm scared.
TL;DR: I'm practicing enforcing boundaries and lost my relationship. I feel hopeless and stupid. I just had to say it somewhere, and I think it was good for me to kind of lay it out for myself. Thank you for reading my long post.

I have surgery scheduled in two days (Robotic Simple Para Esophageal Hernia Repair w Mesh), and I'm getting nervous about it after finding this subreddit. I'm looking for advice on whether I should stick to the plan and go through with it, or whether I should cancel...
I'm 31 years old, and I've been having bad acid reflux daily for maybe 6 years or so now. My HH seems to be pretty small... Only 1 cm. However, I get bad acid reflux every day, even if I don't eat anything. PPIs help a bit, but not enough IMO. It often leads to me coughing and occasionally vomiting. I haven't had any chest pain or shortness of breath. I have bad anxiety, but I don't have any reason to believe it is related to the HH.
My father (early 60s) had surgery for his HH a few years ago and spoke very highly of it. It stopped his acid reflux. He says he has to pace himself eating now or it will feel like food doesn't want to go down into his stomach, but if that's the only lasting side effect, I'd gladly take that compared to my normal acid reflux. I'm not sure how big his HH was, but I know he dealt with it for a good chunk of his life.
After looking through this subreddit for a bit, my symptoms seem more manageable than many others, so now I'm starting to doubt whether I should go through with this. My father and my GI doctor seem to think this is the right thing for me to do, but I'm getting cold feet about the surgery... Hopefully this isn't just my stomach talking since I'm on a low sugar pre-op diet right now and am getting non stop cravings!
Does anybody have any advice? Any words of encouragement for either decision? Thanks in advance!

Credit to u/bluefishcake for writing the original SSB story and building the sandbox for us to play in.
And a big thanks to the authors and their stories that inspired to get off my ass and put my fingers to keyboard. RandomTinkerer (City Slickers and Hayseeds), Punnynfunny (Denied Operations), CompassWithHat (Top Lasgun), Rhion-618 (Just One Drop), UncleCieling(Going Native), RobotStatic (Far Away), Kazevenikov (The Cryptid Chronicle), Also to the editor # Fan Beta Readers and KLiCkonthat
As always comments, complaints, and suggestions are welcome.
This is a fair use notice. Any and all aspects of this may be used on and within this subreddit only, with attribution. All other uses are exclusive to the author.
/**************/
PO Jyhnex led Robert to the conference room where he had set up a paper and pencil for him, as per his request. She had also set up a digital whiteboard in case Robert needed it. Robert began drawing the first thing on his mind, occasionally expressing pieces of his thought experiment as he allowed himself to disconnect from the world around him. This was different from meditation as it was inwardly directed and allowed him to fly into the universe.
Closing his eyes, he imagined himself walking on the surface of the sun, feeling the solar wind as if it were a gentle mist of water from a sprinkler. The magnetic field lines reacted to his touch like the strings on a harp, playing the music of the stars. This was the place where Robert could start any journey he wanted. He remembered the quote about a demon that lived in the air, which people believed would kill anyone who challenged it. They had long ago slain that demon, but there was a new one that lived in the void. Many had challenged it, but all had died, leaving behind only the simplest of atoms as a result. Robert was not there to challenge the demon, but to understand it.
He willed himself to warp spacetime and move among the stars. As he passed the stars, the light they emitted danced and flickered on the boundary of the warp field, creating a distracting white noise, it demanded his attention, but it would have to wait for a later time. He was here to observe the gravity waves generated by objects moving in the universe, such as planets around stars, stars around each other, and the dances of colliding black holes. They created an endless discordant white noise on the fabric of the universe. The universe had a frequency, and the phase field had a frequency. When they aligned, phase travel became efficient and easy. Many parameters made up the phase frequency, but mass and warp field distortion rate were the two most important. The warp field distortion rate was by far the largest factor. The sweet spot for phase travel was between 0.35 and 0.55 against the Keriverax Barrer Scale, which was the brick wall at the end of phase travel. It was also the home of the demon that lived in the void.
At 0.4KBS, the gravity waves would slide around the warp field like the flow of air over a wing. At this speed, there was almost no distortion from the turbulence in his wake. This was his starting point. In his mind, he pushed up to 0.57KBS, where the gravity waves began to stick to the warp field for just a moment, maybe one or two picoseconds at most, before releasing like a stretched rubber band. He slowed his perspective of time to watch the interaction between the warp field and the gravity wave, playing with the different aspects of the warp field. He repeated his runs over and over again until he defined four quantitative pieces that, if applied correctly, could move the sweet spot up to 0.65KBS, maybe even 0.7KBS.
Pulling back from the warp field and examining it from the outside perspective, there was nothing left that he could alter from inside the field. On the outside, he left the gravity waves, and there was nothing he could do to alter them, but they were definable. It was time to go home, and he would explore more next time.
/***************************************************/
PO Jyhnex: Sorry about that. It's my fault.
PO Jyhnex: (private mode) Lt Cmdr Ashix, grab Dr. Norroe. You both are going to want to see this.
When Lt Cmdr Ashix and Dr. Norroe arrived, there were already a few others watching through the conference room windows. Robert was standing at the main table that had been dragged over to the far side of the room. He was using the digital wall screens like a whiteboard. PO Jyhnex moved over to stand between them., "Commander, we were told to let him do this, right?" She asked, just be sure that they had the confirmation of the orders to allow Robert to have limited access to the things he needed to continue his work.
Lt Cmdr Ashix licked her lips, not really understanding what she was seeing. "Yes and no. We wanted to guide him in the direction of what we think we understand. I do not know if this applies. Doctor, what do you think?"
Dr Norroe stood in delighted amazement watching Robert work. He was writing with his eyes closed, moving his head as if seeing or listening to something that was not there, and sweating heavily. She understood what he was doing. He was visualizing the problem in his mind and was trying to express it as fast as he could. Then he switched hands just as Lt Cmdr Ashix interrupted her and asked, "I am not sure, Petty Officer. Have you noticed that he was switching hands?"
PO Jyhnex pointed to an area away from where he was working and said, "Yes, and he changed languages every time he does."
Lt Cmdr Ashix asked, "What do you mean?"
Dr. Norroe slowly smiled and said, "In theory, he is working on the problem in both sides of his brain, as an analytical and a spatial awareness problem."
PO Jyhnex said, "I know this is going to sound like a complete turox shit question, but has anybody held a mirror up to these undecipherable symbols?"
Dr Norroe and Lt Cmdr Ashix just looked at the Petty Officer. "Your report said he has a human learning disability where his brain interprets symbols backward. Maybe he is writing them backward."
Lt Cmdr Ashix sent a private message to her colleague, "Vevreix, please join me over at Congress Room 3 and bring your glasses." A few moments passed when she received her reply.
C. Vevreix: "On my way, ma'am.”
As soon as Ishani arrived with En. Tha’xur in tow, Lt Cmdr Ashix asked Ishani, "I need your glasses." Ishani handed them over without question. Lt Cmdr Ashix held her glasses up to her data slate so that the image from the screen was reflected on the surface of her glasses. "Ensign, crewman, please tell me what you see," she said.
Ishani spoke first, "The symbols are inverted, both flipped horizontally and vertically."
En. Tha’xur interrupted, "Not only that, the whole block of the equation is written right to left, not left to right...Ma'am, we are going to have to redo most of the translations. I think some of our core assumptions were wrong."
Lt Cmdr Ashix said, "No, you two work with what is right here. I do not want to throw away all of the work we have done so far unless we have to. Get me something by tomorrow morning with just what is in the room. I need to speak with CMDR Vashini."
Handing Ishani back her glasses, she said, "Get on it, you two. Everybody else, back to work."
/*********************************/
Robert opened his eyes to see what he had done. He knew what he had written and what it meant, but understanding it all required filling in the missing pieces. This was way more complicated than making the Charger fly. Turning, Robert saw around a dozen Shil’vati watching him through the windows of the conference room.
"Fuck me…" he resignedly thought to himself. He had to get down from the table, but why have the fun end on a boring note?“You shits want to gawk at me? Fine, gawk at this!” Robert thought as he launched himself into a front aerial, landing in the center of the room. Turning to face his work, he walked backward until he hit the wall and allowed himself to slide down and sit on the floor. With one more defiant move, he flipped each marker up onto the table, not caring where they landed.
From outside, he heard a commanding voice, “Alright, ladies, the show is over.” Sitting on the floor, studying his equations, he started to taste the iron tinge of blood in the back of his throat. Always the bloody fucking nose, he thought. The bloody nose was a small price to pay for the ability to define the problem. He needed aspirin and Tylenol to take care of the headache that was starting. His mother had taken him to a neurologist about three years before the first time he had learned he could control his little trick. Bloody noses and migraines were the results of what he called "flying". He had gotten the idea from reading about Einstein and his thought experiments, and it was the best way to conceptualize the problem. His mother had thought he had a brain hemorrhage, but the neurologist found it was brain fatigue.
This diagnosis was the doctor's way of saying that she really did not have a good idea of what had happened. The tests had ruled out many conditions that could cause the symptoms including epilepsy, though there were several parrals. The change in blood chemistry and electrolyte imbalance resembled heat exhaustion and was more than enough to trigger the migraine and nose bleeds. Everything else seemed to be within the ‘normal’ ranges for a human, but in Robert’s case, he was at the upper end of normal. The doctor did not think it was worth exploring further. No reason to waste resources on a child labeled as defective.
“Robert, would you please get up and sit in the chair, so I can check you out medically?” He looked up to find Dr. Norroe standing over him, holding out a hand to help him up. He took her hand to stand, though sitting in Shil-sized conference chairs was comical at best. With him standing only 5 feet 4 inches tall, and the average Shil’vita being 7 feet tall, he needed a booster seat. Dr. Norroe asked about his medical history as she did her examination, and he filled her in on what the neurologist had told him and his mother. She handed him a bottle of something that was not water. It tasted like sweet saltwater, and it was disgusting. The doctor made him finish it before giving him a couple of cleaning towels to get the blood off his face. His shirt was a lost cause; the blood had soaked through and was still wet and sticky. He needed a clean shirt and a trip to the bathroom to clean up but had to wait.
While the doctor was checking out Robert, PO. Jyhnex was cleaning up the blood that had dripped onto the table. The table was a mess, and as he had worked, he had stepped in it and tracked blood everywhere, even on the floor. Robert felt guilty that the Petty Officer had to clean up his mess.
Before Robert could apologize, PO. MunRhoe arrived, holding a large yellow bag and five extra-large pizza boxes. “You went and had a party without me. That is not fair.”
Shrugging, Robert smiled weakly. “You went for the beer run and missed all the fun. Now, Petty Officer Jyhnex gets cleanup duty, and I'm stuck with the hangover,” he said, reaching up to rub his temple.
Dr. Norroe finished treating Robert as PO. MunRhoe placed the pizza boxes and the yellow bag on a clean section of the table. "Hangover is right, you are dehydrated, borderline hypoglycemic, and low on salt. What you need is food, fluids, and sleep. Since you were under my authority as a medical doctor, I am putting you on light duty for 48 hours. So, I will tell your security detail that he is to treat you as if you are on restricted duty for that time and watch out for any signs of distress. Understood, ladies?" Both petty officers responded affirmatively with "Yes, Ma'am."
"Now, what in the Deep's name were you doing to get all that?" Dr. Norroe pointed at the digital whiteboard. She thought she knew what he had done but wanted to verify his conclusions.
"I call it flying. Albert Einstein called it a thought experiment. It is a way of visualizing the problem in the mind," Robert said and began to rub his temples again as the room started to rock back and forth.
"And how long do you usually do this for?"
Leaning his head and taking several long, slow deep breaths, Robert replied, "Most of the time, 30 minutes to an hour, tops. Then I go eat like a hobbit." Despite the room rocking, he was really hungry.
Hearing Robert's stomach growl, Dr. Norroe asked, "I have no idea what a hobbit is, but I will presume that you eat a great deal more than normal?"
Leaning his head again, Robert thought to himself, "Why the f**k am I so tired? It is never this bad." Meanwhile, Dr. Norroe continued, "Robert, please look at me. How long do you think you were 'flying' for?"
Robert took one last deep breath before sitting up. "An hour, maybe a little more. Why?"
Dr. Norroe looked concerned. "Robert, you were in it for almost five hours. This is very serious. If you push yourself like that too often, you will kill yourself. Please do not do this again without supervision unless there is a way to set a time limit."
Robert took what she said to heart. Solving the problem today was not worth dying over. "Physical touch has worked before. Is that good enough?"
Dr. Norroe replied, "Yes, that should be good for now."
Seeing the yellow bag on the table, Robert asked, "Petty Officer MunRhoe, did you get that food item I asked for?"
PO. MunRhoe had finished cleaning the mess and was opening the first pizza box. "Yes, it is in the bag. That Playwell store was an interesting place Do you need it, or do you want a slice of pie?"
Smiling, Robert said, "Both, but I will need a couple of spoons or a medicine cup first, and more water, please." He pulled the jug of 100 percent pure natural maple syrup out of the yellow bag, thinking, "A couple of shots of this, and about ten minutes, and the shakes should be taken care of."
PO. MunRhoe set up a slipe for Robert and PO Jyhnex, “That Playwell store was an interesting place. My brother's younger kids would love some of those kits. But why would you want something like that.?”
Incredully Robert shook his head, “Because they are fun.” showing just a hint of sadness “ I still know how to have a little.”
The Navy technician arrived with a stack of small Dixie cups and several bottles of water. PO. MunRhoe watched as Robert poured himself about three-quarters of a dixie cup of maple syrup and downed it, going so far as to lick the inside of the cup clean. Robert savored the flavor, wishing he had some real vanilla or chocolate chip ice cream to go with it. The idea of vanilla ice cream with maple brought back a memory of his childhood Friday night storytime. Maggie would read first with her book, then he would try with his, but he relied on his mom for a lot of it. Looking back now, it was a good memory.
Grabbing a monster slice of the deepest deep-dish pizza he had ever seen, PO. MunRhoe asked, "What is that stuff you just drank?"
"It is maple syrup," replied Robert, reaching for a bottle of water to clean out his mouth before he started in on the pizza. "It is tree sap that has been rendered down into basically liquid sugar. And where did you get the pizza, and how did you even know about it?"
Shoveling a forkful of the pizza filling into her mouth, she began speaking. "A year ago, I had a detail up in Chicago. I was there for a month and fell in love with deep-dish. This came from a place called 'A Slice of Chi-Town,' and it's called Big Blue's double-stacked deep dish. Both marines and militia swear by the place, and I agree, this is good. Try some."
Robert grabbed a slice after helping PO. Jyhnex reset the table and chairs. It was good pizza, but sadly Robert could only finish one slice.
/**************/
First:
Janissary: The Joy Ride Ch1 : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)
Previous:
Janissary: The Joy Ride Ch6 : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)
Next:
Chapter 8
Extra:
Janissary: The Son Of War : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)
Janissary: Vision from Zy'Verila : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)

Hi reddit, this is my first post and I would like some advice. Sorry if the grammar is lame, English is not my main language.
I (F22) have been together with my partner (M22) for 5 years, our relationship has always been good, good communication, no trust issues etc.
We have been really close together for 5 years, of course we have seen our friends and also spent time with others. And we also regularly take time for ourselves.
My partner has always been quite lonely, he has never had friends with whom he could go and do things, he does have online friends with whom he plays daily. But he has always longed for permanent friends with whom he could do many things outside the home. And I totally understand him. He recently got to know a group living in the same town through one of his online friends and they clicked right away. I am happy that he finally has friends and the opportunity to live a life where he feels that he belongs to a group/community. I want him to experience different things in his life and live to the fullest.
The problem is that he spends ALL, I'm not even kidding, ALL of his free time with them and doesn't try to arrange any alone time for us. He has already agreed a lot in advance for long periods when he would only be with them. Anyway, I feel that in our relationship I have always been the one who organizes time together (dates, going to the movies, etc.), he never makes any suggestions. He justifies this by saying that he just can't think of anything to do and prefers that others do and he goes with the flow. I've tried to talk to him about it, but he immediately gets defensive and says I'm just jealous. Discussions always end with me giving in and letting it be. When he sees his friends, I also keep myself busy, see my own friends or do something I like at home. But it still feels strange that we don't do anything together.
I just feel it's unfair that his friends get to experience his fun, social and playful side and I'm left with a tired guy who wants to go straight to bed when he gets home. Especially on weekends, after he gets home from work he immediately goes to them and returns home at 2-3 in the morning. If he doesn't go to sleep right away, he'll tell me what they did. I'm happy to listen and I'm happy that he had a good time. But still it feels bad because it would be nice for him to feel as comfortable and excited when he spends time with me. For the whole 5 years it has really been like I organize activities for us, I think that's why I have so many symptoms because of this. It seems unfair that with them he is immediately ready to do everything and organize time. I don't know if our relationship is just so ordinary and boring for him. I love him from the bottom of my heart and he is an absolutely amazing guy and partner, he supports and listens to me a lot in other matters.
How should this matter be resolved, Are my feelings appropriate and valid? I really don't want to control him or make him feel like he shouldn't live his life. I just wish he would find a way to balance seeing his friends and being and doing things with me too.

So apparently, I can’t post photos here. Which is a huge help and by saying that I’m being a smart ass because now I have to type out the entire CBC results. So anyways, I have had one done 30 days ago and one on Friday. These were for my 10 year old son.. we went to the doctor because he’s been having really dark circles under his eyes to the point where he just looks like he has black eyes. He is very tired all the time, and I figured he might have anemia because I had it when I was a child. I have low iron, so I had to take iron pills and I figured while if that might be the issue going on with him.. so the provider ran a CBC which I will TYPE OUT… the results to, and after that came back the provider and determined it was probably allergies. (Not iron which surprised me) I filled my son in on what was going on because it’s his body and his health and he deserves to know. So we started him on Cetirizine 5mg, once a day.
Now the goal was= for him to take this medication and in 30 days, redraw the blood and see that it all improved, therefore determining it was allergies, causing all of the symptoms and the flags in the blood work. So we had his second draw on Friday and I had access to the results Saturday. I will write out the results of both labs. Know what I’m really concerned about just so I can put this out. There is his EOS was already high in the first draw before medication. It’s only supposed to be at 4% at the highest. Well, his was 6.3% in the first draw. Then NOW it’s skyrocketed up to 22%… which doesn’t make sense because not only did it not lower back to normal…it’s literally SKYROCKETING into ridiculous levels. Now his main red and white blood cells and platelets all seem to be fine so it’s a mystery to me what could be causing these flags and why they’re high or low even after allergy medicine for a month when it was all supposed to be due to allergies in the first place so everything should have gotten better not the same or worse. So begs the question..is it really allergies at all? Is it something else? What could possibly be going on with my son??? Any help is so so so gratefully appreciated. So here goes the lab done April and Friday. (A span of 30 days)

 April 27th. May 26th 

WBC: 5.6 8.1 RBC: 4.75 4.70 HGB: 13.2 13.0 HCT: 38.3 38.4 Mean Corpuscular Volume: 80.6 81.7 Mean Corpuscular HGB: 27.8 27.7 Mean Corpuscular At HGB conc. 34.5 33.9 RBC Distribution Width: 12.3 12.5 Platelets: 387 429
neutroph % 36.4. (L) 34.8 (L)
lymph% % 45.4 (H) 38.2
Monocyte Percentage% 10.8 (H). 7.3%,4%
Eosinophils% 6.3% (H). 18.6%, 22% (H)
Basophils% 0.9 1.0 Ig% 0.2 0.1
Neutrophil Absolute C. 2.0,2.5 2.8, 3.1 (H)
Lymphocyte Absolute C. 2.5 3.1 (H) Mandiff*** Yes Neu% 34 (Low) Lymph% 40% Mono 4% Eos% 22% (High) Plt Est normal RBC morph Normal
So…if this were your child or your patient..what would you say after determining it’s not allergies after a test round of a months allergy medication, and seeing these results? And what would be the next step? What blood tests specifically if any? What would be your game plan and what would you say in truth of your opinion?

Hey guys, I'm cleaning out my storage and selling the extra PC parts/electronics I have. I'm local to Houston if you're interested in meeting locally. Here are the electronics/parts and their prices/descriptions:

• "MSI 4070 Ti Ventus 2X"
  • I always thought that the lack of a small dual slot card for higher end 40 series GPUs was disappointing. So I made my own "MSI 4070 Ti Ventus 2X" by heat sink swapping to get 3090 Ti level performance in a compact package. I'm letting this one go at cost for SFF enthusiasts who want to build in the Velka 5, Velka 7, Dan A4, ZS-A4S, etc. but don't have experience/aren't comfortable with GPU modding. Its priced more than the 4070 Ti MSRP's because the donor GPU had to be sold at a loss as well as getting materials for the swap itself but its still at cost.
  • Condition: Used for thermal benchmarks to compare before/after results from custom swapping the 4070 Ti PCB into a Ventus 2X heatsink. Since the GPU is custom modded, it won't have a factory warranty and has slight cosmetic imperfections, but has been tested thoroughly and functions normally.
  • Price: $1,050 shipped, $1,000 local
• Velka 5 v2.0 w/ PCIe Gen 4 Riser
  • Condition: This used to be my main build, but I'm parting it out and selling the case. Everything is in good condition with the case having some slight scratches from minor wear and tear. Its a great SFF case at 5.0 liters in volume and a very portable build.
  • If you're interested a new ENP 7660B VK FlexATX PSU to go along with the case, let me know. Additionally, the "MSI 4070 Ti Ventus 2X" also fits in the Velka 5 if you're interested. The itself case includes:
    • Velka 5 v2.0 w/ VC-S290G4 PCIe gen 4 riser cable, 2x DP 1.4 internal extension cables, 1x HDMI 2.1 extension cable, 5ft power cord, 12 mm power button, screws, and rubber feet.
  • Price: $230 shipped, $210 local
• Gigabyte AORUS RGB 3600MHz CL18 16GB (2x8GB) RAM
  • Condition: Used, but in excellent condition without any performance issues and is low profile for use in SFF/ITX cases.
    • SKU: GP-AR36C18S8K2HU416R
    • Memory Size: 16GB Kit (2 x 8GB)
    • Frequency: DDR4-3600 MHz
    • Timing: 18-19-19-39 (XMP 3600MHz)
    • Height: 39mm
  • Price: $90 shipped, $80 local
• 4 x 25 Foot, 18 AWG Power Cords
  • Condition: In brand new condition, haven't been used. They're great for PSUs, monitors, TVs, laptop power bricks, etc.
    • UL-listed with a female 3-pin IEC320C13 connector (see timestamp) to a male 3-prong grounded NEMA 5-15P plug (U.S. Type)
  • Price: $10 shipped each/$30 shipped for all or $5 local each/$20 local for all

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/35UJcUU (Diet Coke not included)

Just hit tier 10 have came up with a long list of QoL changes along the way that could make the game much less tedious and more enjoyable. In no particular order:
Filter Monsters from Bestiaries Whenever there are event followers to get, I usually tap check all my bestiaries to see if any limited ones are available, just scrolling through trying to spot them. Since you cant purchase the same follower twice, there doesn't really seem to be a reason for them to be there anymore other than to make searching more difficult. There should be an option to either hide followers you already have or only show limited time followers.
Filter Spells from Arcanist Same issue and suggested improvement as above.
Leaving Dungeons/Towers and reentering them from elsewhere later should be more consistent I don't believe how to do this is shown in game anywhere, but believe its intended behaviour to be able to store up to 5 dungeons by entering them and then closing the game then when you reopen the game your dungeon will appear on the right and you can tap and jump back into it. If you exit the dungeon using the "Leave" action, this does not happen. Leaving the dungeon should have the same effect as closing the app if you physically move far away from the dungeon. Additionally, there could be a "store" dungeon option when tapping a dungeon beside the "Hold to Enter" option so we can store it for later after checking the dungeon options (hard mode, boss mode etc..). It would also be nice to have a menu area where you could see all your stored dungeons along with the time you have left to complete them that you can use to re-enter them, instead of having them all appear on the world screen on the right taking up already valuable space on the cluttered map.
Show what slot an item goes in I always found it strange that from an item's description it doesn't say which gear slot it goes into. For things like "boots" and "sword" its pretty intuitive, but with some of the event items like "house keys" or "scrolls", right away I wouldn't know if these go in the "off hand" slot or "accessories" slot. Right now you need to open the inventory menu and then go through the gear slot sub menus until you find the item.
Show stats of skills provided by weapons In you skill load out you can see the "power" of you abilities and also what they do, but for skills like "volley" or "arrowstorm" enabled by equipment pieces, the description doesn't really tell you much. Right now to figure out how strong one of these skills are or if they can crit you need to go up against the training cactus, factor out buffs and debuffs and then chart you damage, but then for abilities like "arrowstorm" without looking it up online, I am not sure there is any in game way to know that the damage is split between all enemies. The abilities description from abilities enabled by equipment should show "power" and other information you would expect to see from the "skills" menu
Easier way to see the base stats of equipment Whenever I "view" a piece of equipment from the "Equipment" or "inventory" menu, it compared the piece of gear to what I currently have equipped. This is valuable and expected from the "Equipment" page, but I don't feel like this is needed from the "Inventory" page it just adds more clutter making it more difficult to see an items stats on their own. Additionally, I would love for stats from adornment to show separately. As an example, if I have sword that gives 100 attack and 2 adornments that give 6 attack each, i would like the stats on the sword to show 100 (+12) or something like that to separate these buffs (though this might be hard to implement in a way that doesn't look messy with the gear comparison numbers. Maybe they total adornment stats could be at the bottom underneath all the adornments?) This makes using Oran Assess easier to look up an item's quality if it has adornments as right now if I manually subtract the adornment buffs the Orna Assess on gear often gives me errors because there seems to be some weird math with adornments. The current workaround if you care, is to remove all adornments then use the out of game tool.
Set over-wold tap priority. This game is very cluttered with all the buildings and monsters overlapping on the world map. Right now if you want to tap on a specific monster overlapping a building you need to spin the map around or play with the zoom in and zoom out or hide a punch of layers and then put them back again. Either, I would like a way to be able to set the tap priority, or a way to order which layers always appear on top of each other or at least have quest monsters always take priority/appear on top layer.
More detailed skill descriptions Currently some abilities have different "penetrations" or whatever that you can look up on some google doc out there on the internet, but I feel like this info should really be inside the game. I feel like every description from a skill provided by an item should show the M1/M2 (or whatever these are called), Number of Hits, Crit chance (even if zero!) and any other info that I might be missing so we can compare skills better. Right now you have to either look this info up outside the game, which I am not sure is even up to date or do a lot of testing with the training cactus.
Auto Heal After many months I learned that you could just press and hold your inventory menu button to auto heal, but this feels not very responsive and slow, especially if you need to do this a lot over and over after fighting monsters. It would just be nice if there was a way to toggle "Auto heal" on or off so that you would just automatically heal to full HP and Mana after fights.
Buy maximum amount of potions I have no idea why you can only buy 1000 potions at a time, when you can hold up to 5000. Beyond that though, I would love to just have a 1 tap button that purchases the maximum amount I can carry. For example, if I had 2000 small health potions on me, I could just tap "Buy max" and it would just purchase me 3000 more small health potions if I have the gold. A nice bonus would be if we could up the carrying capacity from 5000 to 9999. I think at the moment there is some janky way to carry more, by putting them in your keep and them being used from there, but again this is just tedious and not explained in game.
More graphics customization I always play on "Low" graphics just because I hate the sprite flashing when you attack an enemy. I wish this could be toggled on or off separately. Additionally, the down side of playing on "Low" settings is that I can not see any "Berserk", "Arisen" or "God-forging auras" on the over world map. I wish there was a separate toggle for these auras as well, since I personally feel like that's a big part of the game and determines which enemies I would want to fight when walking around.
Raids should end once you hit their damage cap Once you reach the damage cap on a raid the boss hits you for 9,999,999 damage and the raid ends, but this attach can be dodged or blocked and if the boss is stunned etc.. it might not even do the attack that turn Improvement would just be to end the raid once you hit the damage cap (and not have the "defeat" screen would be a nice to have, since were we really "defeated"?) or have the big attack always happens at the damage cap and always connect. Additionally, I believe you can go over the damage cap a bit if you do a big crit on the last attack, but maybe the damage cap should just be a hard cap. Not sure if it is this way already or not.
Other realms timer When we have other realms events, it would be nice to have a timer showing how much longer I could remain in the "Other realms" map. Sometimes I get booted out after a very short time like 1 or 2 hours it seems and other times its like the whole day I am still there.
Activate all bonus buff items Later in the game, my current experience is that you essentially have an unlimited amount of exp potions, dowsing rods, torches, silver and gold coins. It would be nice if there was a single button to activate all these buffs at once or maybe a way to toggle on or off have these buff automatically refresh once they run out if you have the necessary item in your inventory. A bonus would be that they would only refresh once you open the game so you don't wast items if you are not playing. Either way, this change would make these items feel more valuable.
Open Guild menu from Territory view When you are in game and tap the bottom right circle to go to the territory view, this disables to guild menu button. Not sure why this is the case and I think you should be able to open the guild menu from that screen.
Push Notifications Maybe its just my phone is set up this way, but it would be nice to enable some push notifications. The ones I would want would be, when an event or other realms even is starting, when a piece of equipment is done upgrading at the blacksmith, when my town hall refreshes its list of quests and maybe some guild stuff. Additionally, I don't feel like the current notification checks do anything. Whether I have every option or nothing checked I still get the ! notifications in game by the yellow bell icon in the top left and always constantly need to go in to view the notification to clear it. Most of these notifications I don't care about at all, but requires me to tap through each sub menu to find the notification to get rid of the !.
Option to hide ally damage numbers I, like many others I would assume, don't play with other people very often. I would love a way to hide ally damage numbers in raids. Specifically in the latest other realms event, ally damage numbers just make it harder to see my own and make the game more laggy it seems. Since their damage numbers don't do affect me in any way I would like to turn them off or even turn off showing allies entirely. I'm not even sure the point in having them is because I don't think you can buff each other or benefit from them debuffing the boss.
Show total rewards from areas One of the funnest parts of Orna is travelling around and capturing areas. I know its not a huge source of income, but I would love to have a page where we could see our total daily, weekly and monthly rewards from captured areas. It would be much more motivating to go out and play if we could see our incomes go up and compare with other party members/friends.
Dismantle all from shops Maybe this one changes the game too much, but currently you can already buy all the items from a shop and then dismantle them for materials. It would be nice to just have a "dismantle all" in the shop that buys all of the item and dismantles them just giving you the materials.
Other realms Show damage thresholds/boss HP. From what I understand, in other realms you need to do 10x the bosses HP to get maximum rewards, but to find this out you need to web search this information. It would be a nice to have to show the bosses HP in the raid or for more fun, show the max rewards % you have reached with the current amount of damage you have done.
View different gear load outs from status page If you go the the "Status" menu, you can view your "stats" from all your different load outs. It would be nice that when you tab through your different loadouts, your gear for those specific load outs would also show below. Right now it always shows your "World" load out. Additionally, it would be nice to be able to view your party member's or guild member's different load outs to see what they are using for different content. Right now I just see view distance gear or farming gear, which is not that interesting.
Put auto dismantle settings back in options Not sure why this got moved to a sub menu in the items menu and very frequently on this sub Reddit I see people asking where this is. The current location does not seem very intuitive, but this is a small thing. Its less of a issue now at T10, but while levelling I would have liked a way to combine quality and tier when auto-dismantling. For example, only dismantle things that are T5 or below that are also rare quality or below.
Obviously some of these changes would take a lot of work and the Orna team seems very small with patches being very few and far between, but it would be nice if some of these could be on the radar for future versions. Most of these changes are things you can already do in game, just with more button pressing. Overall as well, I find the game very unresponsive sometimes, like tapping "attack" often has a 1-2 second delay. I am on a current generation flagship phone and have fast home wifi, but frequently the game just gets slow. Sometimes I can fix this by opening and closing the game. Not sure if this is an optimization problem (again small team) or a money/server speed problem (I did purchase a sprite pack).

29) F , (35) male. I started a new job nursing . I leave early 6:30…7am for work. My husband is self employed so he’s home till he starts his day… at whatever time. Lately he hasn’t been as hard as usual and not wanting sex as much. I think he’s either cheating ( has before) , too much porn, or idk. I just notice his erection is not as strong anymore.
We had a few drinks and went at it last night .when we got started he wanted to go straggly for anal….. we haven’t had sex in in 8…9 days , so I asked if he could start in my p. He was hitting me doggystyle and I was using my vibrator. His d just kept softening up. I started to feel embarrassed and odd so I asked if he could change the channnel on the tv because it was throwing me off ; he just got up and went to the bathroom to wash off, came back and put his clothes on. I stayed in the bed just staring in confusion. I ended up putting my clothes on and went to the bathroom to finish myself off. I came back to the room and he was sleeping.
We used to have sex often but lately it’s been once every 7…8 days. Plus we’re having fertility issues .
He used to get rock hard just looking at me and now that doesn’t happen.
What could it be? I know he watched porn and jacks off when I’m gone …..or maybe he’s cheating . I feel so unaccomplished and low of myself .
Update: he woke up this morning and snatched my phone out my hand and seen what I was looking at on Reddit . He threw my phone at me and said ( “youre a hot and my dick only gets soft when I fuck you“)

Melinda and the Little Green Men
by Andrew Roller
Melinda and the Little Green Men
Table of Contents
Chapter One - A Sad End
Chapter Two - A Castle for a Queen
Chapter Three - Incommodious
Chapter Four - The Sewer Room
Chapter Five - The Teleport Threat
Chapter Six - Neverwhere
Chapter Seven - Permanent Perigee
Chapter Eight - Losers Welcome ( Especially )
Chapter Nine - Buried Alive
Chapter Ten - Gone Away
Chapter Eleven - Dead Broke
Chapter Twelve - Grave’s End
Chapter Thirteen - Audition
Chapter Fourteen - Heavenly Flush
Chapter Fifteen - Coffined
Chapter Sixteen - The Big Bang
Chapter Seventeen - A Sucky Day
Chapter Eighteen - Examination
Chapter Nineteen - Expelled
Chapter Twenty - Enslaved
Chapter Twenty-One - The Bugler
Chapter Twenty-Two - The Gates of Salvation
Chapter Twenty-Three - The Amateur Genius
Chapter Twenty-Four - Pooper’s Paradise
Chapter Twenty-Five - Eisegesis
Melinda and the Little Green Men
by Andrew Roller
Chapter One - A Sad End
It was their last day on earth. The two girls, playing in the field in their suburban neighborhood, didn’t know this. If Melinda and Emily were ever to return to earth, it wouldn’t be for a very long time.
Melinda was ten years old. I could say that she looked “striking”. Or I could use some other politically correct term. In fact, she was very lovely. Her lank, flaxen hair fell to her slim waist. A white string bikini clung to her svelte figure.
Emily was seven years old. Her short red hair fell to her shoulders. Stout, she resembled a girl version of Winnie-the-Pooh. Emily wore a one-piece floral print swimsuit. Both girls had on rubber flip-flops.
Emily was clever. Though she was only seven years old, she wore a red fireman’s hat with the number “21” printed on it. Emily hoped that her hat would fool people into believing that she was older, or even that she was a fireman.
On this bright sunny day, something flashed in the sky. Both girls saw the silvery disc as it caught the sunlight. Emily was quick to figure out what it was.
“It’s a flying saucer!” Emily said. Melinda, who was taller than Emily, watched it with her friend. The saucer sailed over the neighborhood. As it approached, the girls saw it clearly. It had a flat circular base, and a domed top. A line of porthole-like windows encircled the lower part of the dome. There was a front-facing windshield.
The saucer, and its shadow, skimmed over the field. The saucer’s shadow briefly engulfed the girls. Then the saucer passed over a treeline. It settled into tree-dotted scrubland. From that place came a sound of snapping tree limbs, and of brush being crushed. Silence followed.
“Let’s go!” Emily urged. Both girls wanted a closer look at the flying saucer. It was unimaginable that such an object could land in their neighborhood! The girls had no idea that they would soon be swept up in an ongoing galactic war. They rushed into the treeline. Then Melinda and Emily crept into the shady brush beyond.
The saucer was there. It stood on metal legs, hulking amid the surrounding trees. An electrical hum, like that put out by high tension wires, came softly from the saucer’s smooth hull.
An airlock opened in the side of the saucer. A stair-equipped gangplank descended. Then, as Melinda and Emily watched, a line of little green men came down the gangplank. The men were about as tall as the girls. They were carrying a pink worm. It was a big worm, as big as a little green man.
The men laid their worm down on the grass. The last men in the group had brought shovels. The shortest of the little green men was in charge of the men. Named Chirpley, he set several men to work digging a hole.
Emily crept forward. Melinda tried to stop her, but decided to accompany her. The little green men saw the girls. There was a mutual cry of surprise from both parties. The men stopped their digging. Emily asked what they were doing.
“We’re digging a grave,” Chirpley answered. He and the other men stood with solemn faces. Emily, who sometimes went fishing, said that it was odd to bury a worm. She only dug worms out of the earth.
Chirpley stood straighter. He, like his fellows, had a round head. Two green antennae stuck out of the top of his head. He was without clothing, except for a white loincloth that, being puffy and full, resembled diapers. Chirpley wore white gloves. On his small feet were big, rhinestone-studded cowboy boots.
“This is no ordinary worm!” Chirpley told the girls. “It’s our queen!”
“Except she’s dead now,” a second little green man said. He looked much like Chirpley, with a round head and antennae. He wore a loincloth, gloves, and cowboy boots.
“She was a very old queen,” a third little green man said.
“So, since she’s dead, we must bury her,” a fourth little green man said. There were, in all, a dozen of them.
“Stand aside!” Chirpley told the girls. It didn’t matter that the girls were already at a distance from the dead worm. Chirpley rarely missed a chance to look important. Even in front of little Earth girls.
The little green men dug their grave. Or, rather, a few of them did, while the others watched this with Melinda and Emily. Chirpley supervised.
The dead queen was buried. The little green men had just filled in her grave when someone, off in the trees, yelled,
“Attack!” Stones and handfuls of dirt flew from the treeline. Several little green men were hit by the stones. A stone banged off of Emily’s Fire hat. She and Melinda screamed. So did the little green men. The men ran back aboard their flying saucer and, as neighborhood boys whooped and hollered, and threw more dirt and stones, Melinda and Emily followed the men.
No sooner had the green men and the girls rushed into the saucer, than something came out of it. Two somethings, in fact. They were grotesque. Ghosts, they resembled white sheets torn by the wind from a clothesline.
The boys charged from the trees. They were attacking through the shady brush when the ghosts set upon them.
“OOOOOO!” the ghosts howled. The boys screamed in terror. They fled back into the trees, and into the field.
The saucer hummed more loudly. Its gangplank retracted. Just before the ship buttoned itself up, the ghosts zipped back inside of it. The saucer whisked into the sky. It disappeared beyond the clouds.
Within the saucer, Melinda and Emily cringed before the ghosts. These hung over them, looking horrid. The ghosts had blank, bulging eyes, and gaping mouths with fangs. They had scared the boys, and were now scaring the girls. To the little green men, they were damn annoying.
“Our spaceship’s haunted,” Gauss apologized. He was one of the men. He and several of his crewmates, though dressed like the others, also wore utility belts.
“But we got it at a discount,” a fellow crewman said. The green men stood with the girls on the saucer’s bridge. To one side was the closed airlock. To the right, and to the rear, the bridge opened onto other rooms.
The saucer was named “Regoob”. Compared to a military cruiser, it was a little ship. Yet Regoob was plenty roomy. Its many spaces held a number of unwanted passengers. But these occupants were mostly small, and furtive, unlike the two hovering ghosts.
One occupant was big. He was a worm, like the men’s dead queen. He slithered about in the saucer’s recesses. Except now. Curious about the girls, this worm peered from a shadowed corridor. Then, he did the one thing that he was known for, and named for. He farted.
“Farrrrrrrrt!” It was a big, smelly fart. Both girls clutched their little noses. The little green men did the same. The ghosts, who had been so hideously maleficent, fled. An embarrassed Fartley slipped away into the ship.
“Peeyou!” Emily cried. Melinda echoed her. The girls made for the airlock. That’s when they realized that Regoob was airborne. In fact, the little saucer was far beyond the Earth.
“We’d better go home,” Melinda said. Emily wasn’t so sure. The saucer’s pilot’s seat, before its dashboard and its windshield, struck her as inviting.
“Can I drive?” she asked. Since no one was, at the moment, controlling where the saucer went, she figured she might try.
That’s when Gauss saw the Moon approaching. It was approaching fast. He gave a cry of alarm. The other men, now seeing what he saw, gave panicked yells.
Emily jumped into the pilot’s chair. Grabbing the saucer’s yoke, she steered the ship clear of the Moon.
“Hooray!” the little green men yelled, with Melinda. Emily continued to fly the speeding saucer. Gauss gave her driving tips.
Soon, the ship was approaching Jupiter. As anyone who’s watched the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” knows, or even the film, “Starship Poopers”, Jupiter is no ordinary planet. It’s a gateway to other parts of the galaxy.
Emily couldn’t resist flying through a galactic gateway. Regoob sped toward Jupiter. The planet soon filled Regoob’s windshield.
Within Jupiter’s clouds was a bright oval. This wasn’t Jupiter’s red spot, but a metal doughnut. This doughnut, however, was slender. It was dotted by circular lights.
“Head for the center!” Gauss said to Emily. She did. Regoob shot through the slim doughnut and into hyperspace.
A kaleidoscope of colors streaked past Regoob. They were very pretty. The girls remarked upon them as Regoob tunneled through our galaxy.
The little saucer popped from hyperspace. It sailed among the ordinary stars again. Ahead was a ringed planet.
“That’s Quigley!” Zolna, one of the little green men, told the girls.
“We live there, in a castle.” Gauss said.
“A castle!” Melinda was impressed.
“Does your castle have a fireman?” Emily asked. The answer was “no”. So Emily, who was now Regoob’s pilot, asked to be the men’s fireman as well. The men agreed.
This left Melinda wondering what she could be. Before dinner, of course, since she still hoped to get home soon.
“You can be our queen!” Zolna told her.
“I’ll be the princess!” Emily said. She was still intent, too, on being the men’s fireman and pilot.
“I’m the king!” Chirpley said. This brought Fartley-like noises from the other men. So Chirpley settled on being what he already was, the men’s captain.
Somewhere in the ship, Fartley ensured his place in this little world, by farting.
Quigley loomed. Space traffic was flowing toward the purple planet. Quigley was belted by shimmering rings. But their colors clashed. Melinda remarked on this.
“It’s better than having no rings at all, like Earth,” Chirpley riposted. He did not mention that planet Quigley lacked a moon.
Emily followed the space traffic into Quigley’s atmosphere. There, the ships scattered to their destinations. Emily, directed by Gauss, flew over a city. Its buildings, compared to those on Earth, were outlandishly shaped. Beyond the city lay a beach community. And then, shining to the sunlit horizon, was a lavender sea.
“Land there,” Gauss told Emily. He meant the far side of the beach community, near the seashore. Emily put the saucer down in a patch of sand.
Regoob stood upon its metal legs amid other parked spaceships. Makeshift buildings were also neighbors to to Regoob. No castle was in sight. The sea lay near.
Chapter Two - A Castle for a Queen
Zolna opened the airlock. Its gangplank lowered, and the men and the girls disembarked. The hour was noon. It was hot. There was a salt tang in the air and, in the distance, the waves could be heard as they broke along the shore.
Chirpley led the party along a sandy trail. It wound between the spaceships and the homes. Hofsted, the fattest of the little green men, waddled at the file’s rear. He complained about leaving the ship.
“We’ll be at our castle soon,” Chirpley said.
The beach community slumbered in the seaside air. There were odd odors. These smells, of cooking food, caused Hofsted to say he was hungry. The men ignored him. A seagull sailed overhead.
Creatures gazed here and there from the spaceships and from the homes. Their alien faces startled Melinda and Emily. It was as if they’d wandered into a back lot on Star Wars, full of extras in outlandish costumes! Some of the aliens were surprised to see the girls.
“What are Earthlings doing here?!” an alien asked.
“There goes the neighborhood,” an alien, observing the girls, lamented.
Chirpley heard this.
“Commoners!” he riposted, to his alien neighbors. “Show some respect for royalty!” Melinda realized that Chirpley meant her, and Emily. She blushed. As for Emily, she trotted along with a self-confident look. She’d piloted a flying saucer, and now she was the inheritor of Luke Skywalker’s realm. Plus she was a fireman, and a princess. This was a fine day!
The trail led onto the beach. It was mostly vacant on this weekday, with a few bathers and seagulls. Chirpley indicated a large sculpted heap of sand on the shore. It stood just above where the inrolling sea boiled.
“There it is!” he said. He and his crewmates beamed at Melinda and Emily.
The men had built a big sand castle. It had some attractive towers, a wall and a moat. Several small flags, in various colors, decorated the edifice. An old door lay across the moat. It gave access to a hole in the ground, that the castle enclosed.
Emily was entranced. When the men invited her to come inside, meaning down into the hole, she agreed. Melinda cautiously accompanied them. As she did, she seemed to hear her name on the wind. But she saw nothing unusual, besides the bathing aliens and the seagulls.
Zolna led the group into the hole. He did so with a flashlight. Several other men lit flashlights too, as the group entered the hole.
The hole had a stone staircase. It had been carved by time, and by an intelligent hand. Sand dusted or clung to some of the steps. So did seaweed and seashells. These also cluttered the floor of the cave that the stairs led down into. An old stove sat in the cave.
“This is Mr. Lehman’s cave,” Zolna told Melinda and Emily.
“We used to be his gardeners,” Hofsted said proudly.
“Gardners?” Melinda asked. She saw only stone, and the oceans’s detritus.
“It was an easy job,” Hofsted admitted.
“He’s a sailor,” Chirpley said.
“But he’s disappeared,” Gauss added. “We don’t see him anymore.”
“That’s too bad,” Melinda said.
An apparition appeared on the stairs, near the lowest step. Melinda yelped. Emily gave a gasp of surprise, and the men gave startled cries.
“Melinda,” the ghostly figure said. It resolved itself as a tall, slender boy.
“You’re human!” Emily gasped. The boy’s image remained streaked with transmission lines, as if it were being beamed into the cave from far away.
“Quiet!” the boy snapped at Emily. She gasped anew. So did Melinda, and the others
“You’re my bride,” the boy told Melinda. The bikini-clad girl shrieked.
“I’m King Kleigowski,” the boy said. “From Earth, of course. My galactic fleet will arrive in a moment. Stay here as it attacks. Then, I will land, and we’ll be married,” the boy said to Melinda.
Seawater spilled down the stairs. The boy’s image vanished.
“My God!” Melinda gasped.
“She’s not marrying you!” Emily, finding her courage, told the place on the stairs where the boy’s image had been.
More seawater came down the stairs.
“We’d better go,” Zolna said. “The cave floods at high tide.”
Emily scrambled up the stairs with Melinda. The men followed. The tide was boiling about the castle. In the clear sky above, thunder sounded. Then sirens began to wail in the distance. Kevin Kleigowski, who had been terrorizing the galaxy’s far side for some time, was now attacking Planet Quigley!
Melinda and Emily ran with the men from the beach. They headed back to Regoob. All about them, the beach community was coming alive to the danger that thundered above. A battle was underway in the sky.
Melinda and Emily ran up the gangplank into Regoob. As the crew came in after them, a seagull flew into the ship. Emily reclaimed her place in the pilot’s seat.
Regoob took off. Other spaceships were beginning to rise from the land too. Suddenly, a transmission forced itself onto a television screen on Regoob’s dashboard. A man in a military uniform issued a warning. His insignia showed that he was a Quiglian general.
“Attention all civilians!” the general warned. “We’re under attack! Do not leave Planet Quigley! All civilian spaceships are grounded!”
“We’d better land,” Hofsted said.
“Ignore that!” Chirpley shouted.
“But—“ Melinda gasped. Emily flew stolidly higher.
“We’re soldiers!” Chirpley said.
“We’re volunteer lifeguards,” Zolna said.
“Good enough!” Chirpley retorted.
The saucer was now climbing at an eye-popping speed. It cleared the clouds, and the sunlit sky. The starry cosmos opened before it. The ship sped toward the nearest ship in the Quiglian fleet. The Quiglians were locked in a battle with King Kleigowski’s ships.
As Regoob closed on the big Quiglian cruiser, the general reappeared on the saucer’s dashboard T.V.
“Stop!” the general ordered.
Chirpley drew himself up to his full, diminutive height.
“Sir!” he told the general, with an irked look. “I am Chirpley Superlapee.” To Emily, Chirpley said, “Full speed ahead!” Then, for effect, he added, “Don’t shoot ‘till you see the whites of the their eyes.” Since he was sounding very important, Chirpley added, “Your money or your life!”
The saucer rushed at the cruiser. As it loomed, Emily began to think that going full speed ahead might not be a good idea.
Then she realized that they were too close to the cruiser to stop! As a collision became obvious, she leapt from the pilot’s seat.
“Duck!” Emily called to Melinda. Samuel, the seagull who’d flown into the ship, drew himself up to his full, diminutive height. He did so on the floor, where he’d settled by Melinda’s feet.
“I, Miss, am not a duck! I’m a sea-“ Samuel began.
Melinda felt a sudden tingling wash over her. She was standing somewhere else, if still beside Samuel, as the bird finished giving his species.
“-gull,” Samuel said.
They were all someplace else. That is, the girls, the men, and whatever else that had been on the saucer’s bridge, was now in a jail cell. The jail’s front wall and it’s door consisted of iron bars. A heavy white mist clung to the jail’s ceiling.
The saucer was nowhere to be seen. But there was a low hum, that is common to spaceships.
A tall boy came to the cell’s door. Melinda gasped. So did Emily, as cries came from the men.
“It’s that boy!” Melinda yelped, alarmed, to cries of alarm from her cellmates. She cringed. So did Emily, and the others.
“Call me Kevin,” the boy said. He grinned at Melinda. “You’re lucky I’m around. Your little friend ( he meant Emily ) crashed your saucer into a Quiglian cruiser.”
“I’m not marrying you!” Melinda said.
“Me neither!” Emily said.
“Me neither!” Hofsted said.
Kevin laughed.
“You’d better let me do the thinking,” he told Melinda. “My teleport ray couldn’t reach you on planet Quigley. You were too far away. So I told you to stay. And what did you do?” He grinned, and not pleasantly. “You fled, of course, directly toward me!”
As Kevin spoke, the mist coalesced. Suddenly, it was no longer a mist, but a pair of fanged, bulging-eyed ghosts!
“OOOOOO!” the ghosts howled, at Kevin. The boy ran shrieking out of the jail cell. A moment later, tingling engulfed Melinda. Everyone else in the cell was caught in the same sensation. Then, as suddenly as they’d arrived, the captives all disappeared from the jail cell.
Chapter Three - Incommodious
Melinda sat on the floor. Her head rested against a tiled wall. A sink was above it. Around her, in disorder, lay a number of little green men. Emily sat nearby. Samuel, lying near Emily, righted himself. He flew up and about in a mist that floated along the bathroom ceiling.
They’d been teleported again.
“Where are we now?!” Emily asked.
“I’m in a toilet!” Chirpley shouted, from a bathroom stall. “Help!”
The men and the girls gathered themselves. Some of the men, being teleported to the bathroom, had landed in toilet stalls. Chirpley hadn’t just wound up in a stall. He’d been planted with such force into a toilet that his bottom was stuck in the hole at its base. Toilet water surrounded his semi-submerged figure. He gazed helplessly from the commode.
“Don’t flush it!” Chirpley cried, of his toilet, as the girls and some crewmen piled into his stall. The group couldn’t help laughing. Chirpley, however, didn’t laugh. Being stuck in a toilet was not his idea of a good time,
Emily and the crew pulled Chirpley out of the toilet. He was unhurt. His body was wet in places. His diaper-like loincloth was soaked.
A woman screamed. Shouts came from the men who hadn’t crammed themselves into Chirpley’s stall.
Kevin had teleported his captives from his spaceship to a Quiglian one. Specifically, he’d teleported his captives into a ladies’ bathroom aboard the Quiglian ship.
“Eeeeek!” the woman visitor screamed. “There are men in the bathroom! In the ladies’ bathroom!” Soldiers arrived. When they learned that the men in the women’s bathroom had also crashed their saucer into the Quiglian ship, they arrested them. Chirpley and his crew were brought before General Grouchley. They were accompanied by Melinda and Emily.
General Grouchley commanded the Quiglian fleet. His flagship was called The Drut. It was this that Regoob had crashed into.
George Grouchley was big, fat and green. His uniform strained to contain him. It was he who had grounded all of Quigley’s civilian ships, and who’d ordered Regoob to stop. It was he whom Chirpley had disobeyed.
Chirpley stood to attention before General Grouchley. He did so with wet pants, from the toilet. Gathered behind Chirpley was his crew, and the girls. The volunteer lifeguard saluted the general. This did not improve George’s mood.
“I understand you were in the ladies’ bathroom,” George said to Chirpley.
“Yes, sir,” Chirpley answered. “I was stuck in a toilet.”
“Your saucer crashed into my ship!” George told Chirpley.
“Yes, Sir,” the volunteer lifeguard replied. Emily slipped partly behind Melinda, to escape the general’s eyes.
“We’ll need a new ship,” Chirpley told George. “To continue our noble fight against King Kleigowski.”
“Kleigowski’s fleet is in full retreat!” George told Chirpley. “I’m not sure what happened. One minute they were attacking, the next — they were fleeing!”
“I may know why - “ Chirpley said.
“Obviously, I’m an even better general than I knew,” George concluded. He eyed Chirpley. “Get your stinky saucer out of my ship! And stay out of the ladies’ bathroom!”
“Yes, Sir,” Chirpley replied.
Several women came screaming into the general’s presence.
“Help!” the women shouted. “Our bathroom is haunted!”
Chapter Four - The Sewer Room
Regoob had smashed through a large glass panel in the hull of The Drut, near its stern. Doing so, Regoob had plunged itself into a big cesspool. Much of the cesspool’s contents had emptied into outer space. This left the saucer at the bottom of the big cesspool, in such sludge as remained. The cesspool stank.
Repair ships had plugged the hole in The Drut’s hull. The big, open cesspool was in The Drut’s sewer room. This was a big, high-ceilinged room, with a crane. As Regoob’s crew arrived, along with the girls, the crane lifted Regoob out of the cesspool. It plopped the saucer, with a clang, onto the sewer room’s floor. A work crew gathered about the stinky craft.
Chirpley strode up to the work crew.
“I am the captain of this august ship,” he said, in a tone that he hoped sounded important. Chirpley had a high voice. But now, his voice was mouse-squeaky, for he was holding his nose. So was his whole crew, and the girls.
The work crew was wearing disposable masks. One of them regarded Chirpley, who remained in wet pants.
“You own this piece of shit?” the workman asked Chirpley. “It’s going to need a lot of cleaning.”
“We’ll wait until you’re done with it,” Chirpley said.
“You’ll clean it now,” a workman told Chirpley. “General Grouchley wants you, and your saucer, off of his ship!”
“Oh!” Chirpley said. “We must have important duties awaiting us.”
“The general just wants you to go!” a workman said.
Meanwhile, back at the ladies’ bathroom, a priest had been called. He was exorcising the bathroom of its two ghosts. Ladies waited with rising anxiety as this holy procedure proceeded.
“Hurry up!” a woman complained.
“I have to go!” another woman said.
The priest paused in his incantations. He assured the ladies that they wouldn’t have to wait long. There was no need to go elsewhere. The priest was a speedy priest. But, if he were to rush, in an unholy way, the ghosts might not be exorcised. So the priest proceeded with due reverence for the divine. And the ladies waited. With rising anxiety.
Chapter Five - The Teleport Threat
Regoob left The Drut. That ship, and its fleet, were now returning to planet Quigley. Emily was piloting Regoob. She was doing so with the purpose of learning to fly it better.
Melinda was aboard Regoob. So was everyone in Regoob’s crew. Samuel, the seagull, had again invited himself aboard. The ghosts, exorcised from the ladies’ bathroom, were aboard Regoob too.
On the saucer’s bridge, teleportation was being discussed.
“People teleport all the time on Star Trek,” Emily said. Chirpley had seen the show.
“We call it ‘Apes in Space’”, he said. Emily scowled at him.
“Who knew an ape - I mean, a human - would invent teleportation?” Gauss asked. Melinda asked what he meant.
“No one in the galaxy can teleport,” Gauss said. “Except, now, Kevin Kleigowski can.” Everyone on the bridge considered this.
“We need to stop him,” Melinda said.
“Yes!” Emily agreed. “He could attack Earth!”
Chirpley saw a chance to be important. Standing straight, though he was still short, he said,
“Men! We must go after King Kleigowski! We must climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow, and go where only apes in space have gone before!”
Gauss hastened to a computer.
“I’ll see if I can find the king’s fleet,” he said.
“Maybe we should ask for help from General Grouchley,” Melinda said. Chirpley bristled.
“I’ll be in command of this mission,” he said. “Since it was my idea!”
“General Grouchley didn’t do anything to defeat the king,” Zolna said. “It was our ghosts who scared him off.”
“I found him!” Gauss said. He meant the king’s fleet. Gauss told Emily what direction to fly in. She did so. Chirpley, pleased, began to practice a victory speech.
“I came,” he intoned. “I saw - “
“And I got stuck in the toilet,” a crewman said.
Chapter Six - Neverwhere
Kevin Kleigowski was angry. The panicked retreat of his fleet had put his ships into disarray. The fault was his own. His fleet was crewed by robots. Their purpose was to obey.
Kevin stood on the bridge of his flagship, Teliot. He spoke with his robot admiral, Dolt 0001.
“Take the fleet through a hypergate,” Kevin ordered his admiral. “We’ll reorganize ourselves on its far side.”
“Yes, Sir,” Admiral Dolt answered. Kevin’s fleet was soon flying toward a distant gas giant. There, it would pass through the planet’s hypergate.
Unknown to Kevin, a little saucer, flown by a seven-year-old girl, was hot on his trail.
Kevin’s fleet neared the gas giant. As Regoob closed on the fleet, Gauss told Emily,
“Hurry! They might go anywhere in hyperspace!”
Regoob snaked among the disordered vessels.
“Land on Teliot,” Gauss told Emily. “That’s the king’s flagship.”
Teliot was a big cruiser. Emily zipped above it. She put the small saucer down amid the outbuildings that topped Teliot’s hull.
The cruiser, and its accompanying fleet, passed into the gas giant’s hypergate.
Emily yawned. She was in a flying saucer in hyperspace, atop a galactic cruiser, but she was also a sleepy seven-year-old. Melinda shared her sense of exhaustion. She said so.
“And I need a bath,” Melinda said.
“I don’t need a bath!” Emily said.
“Emily Fortley, we will both take a bath!” Melinda said. The little green men escorted the girls to a bathroom. The area included a laundry room. When the girls were bathing, they found that they weren’t alone.
“Hey! Quit looking!” Emily said, spying the ghosts in their bathroom.
“Shoo!” Melinda scolded.
The ghosts, sniggering, slipped away.
Melinda and Emily bedded down in a bedroom aboard Regoob.
“Good night, Emily,” Melinda said.
“Good night, Melinda,” Emily said. Neither girl could guess what the hour was back on earth. Then both got a rude reminder of where they were. Fartley trumpeted a loud goodnight in the near distance. The girls escaped the ensuing smell by falling asleep.
As for the little green men, they were concluding their day. They soon bedded down in the room with the sleeping girls. The saucer, atop Teliot, was still passing through hyperspace.
“I don’t know where the king is going, but he’s going a long way,” Gauss said.
“He could be going in circles,” a crewman said. “To throw off pursuers.”
“We’ll board Teliot tomorrow,” Zolna said.
“We can’t do that until we’re out of hyperspace,” Gauss said.
“When we are, I’ll lead the way,” Chirpley said. “Hofsted?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“Bring a trumpet. I’ll need you to blow it.”
“Sir?” Hofsted asked.
“Huh?” Zolna asked.
“It will be a great heroic deed to capture King Kleigowski,” Chirpley said. “When we charge him, Hofsted can blow the trumpet.”
“What about all of his robots?” a crewman asked.
“We’ll charge them too,” Chirpley said. “Zolna!”
“Yes?”
“You bring a trumpet too.”
“Maybe we should just bring Fartley along,” someone said.
“Yes!” Chirpley said. “We’ll have loud farts, and loud trumpeting, and then I’ll say ‘Charge!’. Very loudly.”
“After we leave hyperspace,” Gauss said.
With this, the little green men went to sleep.
“Melinda.”
The 10-year-old sat upright. She’d gone to bed wrapped in a dry bath towel, but now she was in her bikini again.
She wasn’t aboard Regoob. She sat in a field of pale mushrooms. These grew suddenly taller, on long stalks. They became a forest of mushrooms. The mushrooms shaded Melinda from the high sun. Through sprouted undergrowth, a path trailed off into the tall mushrooms.
Then an old man appeared. Using a gnarled branch for a cane, he followed the path. He saw Melinda and spoke.
“Melinda.” He said this at a distance. However, Melinda heard it as if he were beside her. She even smelled his breath. It had an odor of onions.
Melinda stood.
Suddenly, the man was before her. His stooped figure was tall and commanding.
“I want you,” he rasped to Melinda.
The blonde frowned. At least, she told herself, she was face-to-face with the person they’d been pursuing. She did not call him king.
“Kevin. You look awful,” Melinda said.
The man scowled.
“I’m done with Kevin,” he said. “Kevin’s attack on Planet Quigley failed. I don’t like failure.”
The man smiled at Melinda.
“Kevin bores me,” he said. “You don’t.” The man took Melinda’s arm. She found herself walking with him, despite not wanting to.
“We’ll rule the universe,” the man told her.
Due to Reddit’s character limit, I can only post part of my book here.
A free copy of “Melinda and the Little Green Men” is at:
http://andrewroller.com
Copyright 2023 by Andrew L. Roller. Melinda and the Little Green Men is a trademark of Andrew L. Roller.

As background, I already have appointments w/ my PCP and an allergist. I'm looking for advice on whether I should consider an OTC treatment for pinworms (pyrantel pamoate) and/or if I should look into trying to get other appointments with specialists. Any other suggestions (e.g., things I should focus on tracking to discuss with docs or things I can try) are welcomed because my Dr. appointments are a few weeks out and I am trying to fix problems asap as the symptoms are now really limiting my ability to function normally.
Demographic details:

• 31 Male, located on the West Coast of the US.
• Healthy to low BMI
• Drink occasionally, smoke never, regular marijuana use via edibles (though not since onset of nausea).

Key concerning new symptom: Recent (started ~May 25): nausea focused on stomach. Not continuous, but have had persistent bouts over this period lasting the majority of almost each of my days to date. No puking/diarrhea (thankfully).

• Other symptoms/possibly relevant history:
  
  • Anal itching: persistent since ~October. Most severe after defecation. Remains unfixed by Econazole Nitrate cream (using since April, prescribed by doc. Just about to run out and will be discontinuing use) and Hydrocortisone cream (using since Mid-may, also prescribed by doc).
  • Viral infection in late April/early May (~10 days of fever + typical virus symptoms (sore throat, headache, fatigue). Probably the sickest I've been in my adult life. Tested negative for COVID (PCR+rapid test) and strep. Unsure if new symptoms may be post-viral in nature.
  • I have a history of pretty bad allergies, especially seasonal allergies. I am also allergic to many common foods (alliums, apples, melons, etc.). Severe allergies are also common in my family (brother who is allergic to all food, think it's called EGID, two brothers with severe shellfish allergy, Dad who developed adult-onset severe allergy to alliums; all of these people need epi-pens and I don't, so I've always thought of their allergies as more severe).
• Medications I'm on:
  
  • Flonase. 1x spray in each nostril daily. Tapered off starting ~5/21. Restarted 5/27 in case the taper was contributing to nausea.
  • Zyrtec: began taking on 5/27 in case nausea was allergy related--may be helping some as stomach pain has been less severe?
  • Maintenance inhaler for Asthma (Flovent)-Above mentioned butt creams (Hydrocortisone/Econazole)
• Other possibly relevant notes:
  
  • Onset of initial weird symptoms (anal itching/random light rashes) roughly coincided with two things:
    • Trip to Mexico in mid September where I came down with severe diarrhea. Didn't resolve on its own after a week of returning home, so I completed a course of antibiotics (I think Cipro and Amoxycilin, but I can't remember exactly).
    • Racing a 100 mile ultramarathon at the end of September. Not really sure if relevant, but this is obviously super super taxing on the body. I have done 100 mile races before and recovered fine, but 100 mile races are known for extreme effects on the body, so I thought it is worth mentioning (see, e.g.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043077/)

Before the onset of this stuff I've been super healthy by most every metric (only treating seasonal allergies/asthma as needed). Unfortunately, now, I've found my life severely limited especially over the past few days with the nausea. I am usually the kind of person who continues my running through everything, even when sick, and I have been unable to really put in any consistent mileage each day as my stomach pain has been too severe.
I'm not sure if everything above is causally intertwined or if I have such a hodgepodge of competing/irrelevant symptoms that the real problem is hard to tease out. I'm concerned I might actually be dealing with something quite serious, or that I am dealing with multiple issues simultaneously which are making my problem(s) difficult to make sense of.
Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

Welcome to the soccer Daily Discussion!

✔️ This is a thread for:

• Discussion points that aren't worthy of their own thread.
• Asking small questions about football to the community.
• if you're new to the subreddit, remember to get your team crest here and to read our rules and submission guidelines!

❌ It is not a thread for:

• Comments that aren't related to football.
• Trolling or baiting other users or fanbases.
• Low-effort comments about a current match.
• Shitposting, brigading or excessive meta discussion.
• Any other kind of toxic or unreasonable behaviour.

The moderation team will remove comments that violate those rules and ban persistent offenders.
Please report comments you think that break such rules, but more than anything else, remember the human. The Internet is full of places to discuss football in bad faith. This community tries to be an exception.

⚽ Can't find a Match Thread?

• If you are using Old Reddit click this link.
• If you are using New Reddit you need to try this other one.
• If you are using the official app press here and sort by "new".
• If you' areusing a third-party app... ¯\(ツ)/¯

If there's no Match Thread for the match you're watching you can:

• Create one yourself.
• Ask MatchThreadder for one. You just need to send a PM to him with the subject "Match Thread" and the body "Team A vs Team B" (for example, "Inter Milan vs. Udinese") to get one from this great bot 🤖

🔗 Other useful quick links:

⭐ Star Posts: the original content by those users that give their best to our community.
📺 What to Watch: quick but extremely-useful guides of next matches.
🌍 Non-PL Daily Discussion: for small discussions and questions about everything but the English Premier League.
📜 Serious Discussion: for high-quality discussion threads about certain topics.
👩 Women's Football: for women's football content.
📧 Ping Groups: Join a ping group, our new system to find the content you want to see! (Explanation here)
This thread is posted every 23 hours to give it a different start time each day.

As background, I already have appointments w/ my PCP and an allergist. I'm looking for advice on whether I should consider an OTC treatment for pinworms (pyrantel pamoate) and/or if I should look into trying to get other appointments with specialists. Any other suggestions (e.g., things I should focus on tracking to discuss with docs or things I can try) are welcomed because my Dr. appointments are a few weeks out and I am trying to fix problems asap as the symptoms are now really limiting my ability to function normally.
Demographic details:

• 31 Male, located on the West Coast of the US.
• Healthy to low BMI
• Drink occasionally, smoke never, regular marijuana use via edibles (though not since onset of nausea).

Key concerning new symptom: Recent (started ~May 25): nausea focused on stomach. Not continuous, but have had persistent bouts over this period lasting the majority of almost each of my days to date. No puking/diarrhea (thankfully).

• Other symptoms/possibly relevant history:
  
  • Anal itching: persistent since ~October. Most severe after defecation. Remains unfixed by Econazole Nitrate cream (using since April, prescribed by doc. Just about to run out and will be discontinuing use) and Hydrocortisone cream (using since Mid-may, also prescribed by doc).
  • Viral infection in late April/early May (~10 days of fever + typical virus symptoms (sore throat, headache, fatigue). Probably the sickest I've been in my adult life. Tested negative for COVID (PCR+rapid test) and strep. Unsure if new symptoms may be post-viral in nature.
  • I have a history of pretty bad allergies, especially seasonal allergies. I am also allergic to many common foods (alliums, apples, melons, etc.). Severe allergies are also common in my family (brother who is allergic to all food, think it's called EGID, two brothers with severe shellfish allergy, Dad who developed adult-onset severe allergy to alliums; all of these people need epi-pens and I don't, so I've always thought of their allergies as more severe).
• Medications I'm on:
  
  • Flonase. 1x spray in each nostril daily. Tapered off starting ~5/21. Restarted 5/27 in case the taper was contributing to nausea.
  • Zyrtec: began taking on 5/27 in case nausea was allergy related--may be helping some as stomach pain has been less severe?
  • Maintenance inhaler for Asthma (Flovent)-Above mentioned butt creams (Hydrocortisone/Econazole)
• Other possibly relevant notes:
  
  • Onset of initial weird symptoms (anal itching/random light rashes) roughly coincided with two things:
    • Trip to Mexico in mid September where I came down with severe diarrhea. Didn't resolve on its own after a week of returning home, so I completed a course of antibiotics (I think Cipro and Amoxycilin, but I can't remember exactly).
    • Racing a 100 mile ultramarathon at the end of September. Not really sure if relevant, but this is obviously super super taxing on the body. I have done 100 mile races before and recovered fine, but 100 mile races are known for extreme effects on the body, so I thought it is worth mentioning (see, e.g.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043077/)

Before the onset of this stuff I've been super healthy by most every metric (only treating seasonal allergies/asthma as needed). Unfortunately, now, I've found my life severely limited especially over the past few days with the nausea. I am usually the kind of person who continues my running through everything, even when sick, and I have been unable to really put in any consistent mileage each day as my stomach pain has been too severe.
I'm not sure if everything above is causally intertwined or if I have such a hodgepodge of competing/irrelevant symptoms that the real problem is hard to tease out. I'm concerned I might actually be dealing with something quite serious, or that I am dealing with multiple issues simultaneously which are making my problem(s) difficult to make sense of.
Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

Hi, this is my first ever Reddit post, sorry for any mistakes, but I would really appreciate some objective advice.
I(F26) am an immigrant in a large metropolitan city in Europe. For the past 4 years I have been living in a house with very convenient rent (think shockingly low- more than half the market price). This is a 5 bedroom house with somewhat of a subletting situation ( the landlord is aware). The couple that was on the contract previously has moved, and left two men on the contract (think illiterate blue collar workers who don’t speak the local language). I refused to be on the contract because I did not expect I will be living there for much longer, but 2 years went by and I am still there.
In this time l, I have helped those people a lot, with translating documents, phoning various entities on their behalf because again they don’t speak the local language, taking them to the hospital when sick ( including a house condition which could have been lethal) etc. Honestly more than anyone would - stupid me.
Now recently, I started spending less time in the house due to being able to work remotely and spending more time in another city. Their attitude towards me changed and they because almost bully like I was not able to help them as much? Stated making jokes like ‘oh yeah you must have lots of money since you can travel and be away so much - how much money do you have saved must be 70k at least?) , try to borrow money, and then spend it on drugs and alcohol, and also I know the daughter (Ana) of one of them(those guys are both in their 40s- Adam and Andrew) sometimes sleeps in my room when I am away.
I cannot stand them anymore because of their attitude (also they started drinking) but I also really want to keep the rent because I need an address in the city, and a place where I can stay when needed.( Think for a week every 4-5 weeks, this is non negotiable I cannot move officially).
I have a really good job in the finance industry and I do indeed earn more than them. The lease contract is due for renewal and the landlord messaged me to arrange the legals.
I told Andrew ( whom I knew for a longer time) about it and the fact that I want to be on the contract and kick the other guy (Adam). He was not pleased but agreed. Now Ana tells me that they plan to stay together on the lease.
Here comes the dilemma- the landlord likes and trust me more and those two people cannot speak the language so I could easily ask to be put in charge.
My hope would be they would understand their place and stop annoying me with their attitude.
I could also move elsewhere and not deal with this bs ( although I would lose the advantage of keeping the lease on this very cheap rent in a well sought area). Elsewhere would be +$200 per month at least, for a place where I would not spend too much time.
To be noted that I plan to move countries in the next 2-3 years and I want to save as much money as possible.
So Reddit- what to do: be the nice girl I have always been ( which led to be being walk all over again and again) and move elsewhere OR stay and take the more financially advantageous option but deal with these really low IQ people and their vendettas?