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.

In re Cheney - can we call him Heartless Dick? soooo descriptive!

I have skipped and skimmed and skipped and skimmed and shut my damn mouth on both sides and skimmed some more, and am now posting to say:

TEPALINA! I am vibing hard that when your "it's nothing serious" embarrassment is delivered, you will tip in cash.

Steph, I hope the ER finds the chest pains have a benign cause, ideally one that's unlikely to repeat.

I'm lucky with my current doctor. I'm overweight—probably by around 80-90 pounds. My doctor, Dr. N., would like me to change that, as she's concerned about my joints. But she doesn't try to shame me, and when I come in with a specific problem she doesn't try to blow it off as something that would get better if I'd just put down the fork.

Dr. N. continues to be my current doctor, even after I moved to another town, because of this attitude. I've had other doctors whose attitude, comments, and refusal of care—explicitly due to my weight—endangered my health. I was in my 30s before I found Dr. N., and I will not go to another primary care doctor until I move out of state or until she retires.

Doctors are humans whose perspectives are influenced by the surrounding culture, and US culture is pretty hateful toward the overweight. I think they're as likely to be jerks or to be kindly as any stranger in the street, but they're in a powerful position as the gatekeepers for most medical care. So any jerkiness or kindness they manifest is going to be a lot more powerful than said stranger's. When channeled through health care providers, anti-fat asshattitude can stand between us fat people and getting necessary health care. It can be a determining factor in whether or not we get the resources to make pain stop. Some of our most vulnerable times are around health care practitioners—we're sick, or short of breath, or in pain, and frequently unclothed.

So yes, it's important to remember that health care providers are human, with families that love them and the variable strengths and weaknesses that comes with being part of our species, in this time and place. It's also important to find doctors who remember that we're also human, even those of us who are fat, with our own health concerns, pain, and frailties that may or may not have anything to do with our size.

I think I have come down with whatever ick the kids.were sneezing all over the place last week.

The only thing that bothers me about Cheney's heart disease is the fact that I have no part in it, being God's punishment and all. I would very much like to punish the ignorant motherfucker in Virginia that set that moldy oldie free. Extra-special fuck you, considering my mother did lose a baby as a teen(which was really best for everyone) and she felt the need to explain to me that she didn't feel punished by me. We had enough fucking problems. Not to mention the horrifying policy implications of not wanting to educate "Mama's little judgment" I'd like to finish up Comment style, with a nice quote from Disraeli or someone, but I guess I'm stuck with the immortal words of Stan Lee: "Arrgh...Hulk smash! And if your friend is a fucknut in VA state government, I have no apologies, but plenty of condolescences. Where the fuck is Chatty Cathy Palin now? Since she had the only disabled child.