{{{WS}}} I, too, think you are gorgeous. I can picture your beautiful smile so easily. And I want to thank you for sharing with us a vignette of how you feel inside, that can't have been easy.

smishes smonster. I haven't mentioned how glad I have been to see you happy with this new guy you are dating. It's very good to see there is smittenness in your life.

I'm off to work now. I don't want to go. Blah.

Also, I *desperately* don't want to be like Dick Cheney.

Stop shooting people in the face.

or, be better at it and get the job done instead of some bullshit "buckshot". I mean, he didn't just shoot someone in the face, he was bad at it!

And Windsparrow, I will never forget how gorgeous you looked at the Wisconsin F2F. You had that great outfit on and you were so happy and you looked AMAZING. Please don't ever think that you're not beautiful and special. Because if you do, I will get mad, and no one wants that.

Anybody else hear that in Chris Sarandon's voice?

Yep. Dude! I didn't know he was Jack Skellington! Huh.

"I didn't come here for humiliation. I came here for an argument."

"Down the hall."

I want my menopause, dammit.

When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

If this discussion had really been like the Microsoft discussions, every time someone said, "Does anyone have any ideas for what do about this rash?" someone else would say, "That's what you get for going to doctors."

I think it would be more helpful if the people who do have great doctors or who are relatives of doctors would say to the people who are in such pain because of their experiences with doctors that they may be endangering their health, "There really are good doctors out there. I'll ask my excellent doctor if she has any suggestions about how to find one who could help you."

Andi, I too wonder what it's like to be beautiful. I hate what I have become and despair of ever being attractive or losing enough weight to possibly help my lymphedema and make breast reconstruction a safer bet. I exercise and lift weights. (The magic machine that tracks my weights says I'm now lifting a total of 11,000 pounds each session. Go team me.) I do fairly major gardening. I try to eat right. I have tried every major diet. I can tell you the nutrition count of most things in the grocery store. A fat lot of good it's done me.

WS, you are such a kind and empathetic person that your comments over the years have helped me immensely. I wish I knew some answers for you.

Teppy, I sincerely hope you get embarrassed at the ER and it's nothing. Not that I think you *should* be embarrassed about taking your heart health seriously, but I want it to be nothing.

Andi, your post made me want to cry and smack you all at the same time. I think you're absolutely lovely in every sense of the word and I really wish you did, too.

Vortex, my doc and I have talked about the possibility of fibroids, but (and this is one place where it matters) she can't get a good read with palpations due to my weight. And, it hasn't been bad enough to warrant an ultrasound. Until now. Seriously going to ask for one next time.

But, if it is fibroids, what can they do about it other than surgery?

Aren't there a couple different kind of fibroids surgeries these days? Does going on the pill and skipping your period help at all? (obviously the pill is not for everyone and I'm just asking cause I'm curious, not cause I know that's an actual treatment!)

Hey, you could luck out and have polyps instead of fibroids. Many of the same symptoms, much simpler procedure to treat.

Does going on the pill and skipping your period help at all?

Don't know. I'm not a good candidate for the pill due to family stroke history, so I haven't been on it in 15 years. And, with the NGA status these days, doesn't really matter.

I do skip on occassion and all that usually does is make the next month do double duty.

I used to be regular as can be, but since my thyroid surgeries, it's gone wonky and never got back to normal.

Yep. Dude! I didn't know he was Jack Skellington! Huh.

I think Danny Elfman did the singing, though.

If this discussion had really been like the Microsoft discussions, every time someone said, "Does anyone have any ideas for what do about this rash?" someone else would say, "That's what you get for going to doctors."

If this discussion were like the Microsoft discussions, it would be about a software product and not a group of human beings.