I'll be nearly to entirely dark for the next two weeks. I'm having surgery to repair an inflamed disk in my neck, which is pressing on my spinal cord and causing problems in my left arm and hand.

I'll be back no later than 8/8!

I've been watching all the news on the Boston 3 day ( my walk is 7 weeks away in SF) send then a little ma~~~ the heat stopped the walk early and today it is thunderstorms

Hi friends. Those of you who are FB pals with me already know this, so I apologize for the repetition. I had emergency surgery yesterday for compartment syndrome. You will regret the images you see if you google that. I'm going to be laid-up in recovery at UNC med center for a few days. The procedure went pretty well, but I've permanently lost some of the motion in my right leg. The upside is that I didn't lose the use of my leg. So there's that. All in all, I have to caution those of you who may feel peer-pressured into developing a rare condition whilst on vacation with your family: just say no! Sure, the ambulance ride from Morehead City to Chapel Hill is supercool, as are the pain meds, but the horrible stabbing pain is a bit of a drag. And don't get me started on the wretched visions of early mortality! Good for laffs, definitely, but man, so very cliched. In summation, don't do what Johnny Don't does.

Help out DH by boosting TWOP traffic - vote in the Tubey awards!

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Interview~ma would be very much appreciated at 4 pm EDT today. It's a phone interview for a really great job for a really cool company, and I want to make it to the next round so I don't have to settle for the "meh" job. Thanks.

Hi everyone!!

Emeline and I are going to be in DC from August 13th - 18th. I would love to see as many people as possible. We can do dinner one evening or lunch or whatever. Come check out F2F thread and plan!!

Sneaking in momentarily. Surgery was a success. They kept me in the hospital overnight, no complications. Recovering slowly -- a little residual numbness, but that's normal and should go away before too long.

Releasing ~ma to Hayden and anyone else who needs it.

And this is the year that just keeps on giving...

DH has been diagnosed with melanoma. We have no idea what stage, or if it's spread to his lymph nodes, but he has a 4 pm EDT doctor's appointment on Monday that should hopefully answer some questions.

I know I've asked for a lot from all of you, without giving a whole hell of a lot in return, but he could really use whatever ~ma you can spare. He's only 39 but his grandmother died from melanoma, so this is more worrying than it would be otherwise.

I really don't know how much more I can be expected to handle. Between my job disappearing, my uncle, my mother and father's health issues, and this, I'm running out of coping ability.

Can I get some cat-ma? My eldest cat has gone missing, and we're worried sick about her.

I wasn't going to ask for ~ma for this because I'm trying not to worry.

The truth is, I am a bit worried and could use all the support I can get.

I took Bartleby to the vet this morning for yet another round of guestimations regarding his long-term health challenge. ( inflamed, leaking anal sac, which isn't actually as bad as it sounds...believe it or not ) white font for the easily squicked.

The last vet prescribed surgery and only surgery, with a price tag that makes it impossible.

This latest vet was the first to use the C word. She took three needle biopsies, two of which featured only fat cells. The other results will take a week.

As you know, Bartleby is the center of my universe. Any "it's nothing and here is an easy, painless solution for the inflammation" ~ma would be deeply appreciated.

Also, 'that growth on the eyelid? Yeah, that's gonna fall off on its own' would be good too.

Many thanks.