things have been fairly quiet this week. not much to report.
Last week was rough. I had to bring a friend to the emergency department because they had stopped all of their psych meds cold turkey, and their psychiatrist had just put them on a benzo about a month ago. They’re doing okay now, but they were struggling with walking, talking, eating and drinking on the day I brought them to the ED. If you’re on any benzos, please please please never stop them cold turkey, you can quite literally die from doing that. Speak with your physician about a taper plan.
The following day I was supposed to have a rather minor procedure to implant a nerve stimulator in my dorsal scapular nerve. A few months back I had this placed. There were issues with that surgery - it was supposed to take 30 minutes but took 2.5 hours, and ultimately they had to remove it because it got infected. When I came in to get it removed, the charge nurse messed up their first IV placement and put the needle through the median nerve in my hand which still hasn’t fully healed. It was a huge hassle to get this surgery scheduled because they recommended that I get the next placement done by the doc who’s done the most of this particular procedure.
The surgery was delayed about an hour because there were a bunch of accidents that day and it was already a late appointment where they advised me to stop liquids rather early in the day. Unsurprisingly I was quite dehydrated. The charge nurse here knew what he was doing and set the IV no problem in like 5 seconds flat. Unfortunately, however, they blew the IV nearly as soon as they transferred me to the operating table because they were far too aggressive when tucking that arm for surgery. They spent the next hour failing to place an IV about 7 times including using the vein finder and attempting ultrasound placement. Eventually they managed to get one in near the elbow on the arm they were going to need to tuck for surgery (in my opinion not an ideal placement) which also blew immediately upon repositioning my arm. At that point the surgeon who sounded frustrated asked me if I was okay rescheduling the procedure, and because I didn’t want a frustrated and exhausted surgeon operating on me I agreed. I don’t have a new date, but we are now 4 months out from the initial surgery and 3 trips to the operating room and I still don’t have a nerve stimulator 😩
I’m so sorry. How horrible and frustrating for you! I hope you stay well in between appointments.
It’s monday
this is horrible news for Garfields all around the world
Two consecutive 4-day work weeks for people in BC, Canada. Our Thanksgiving is next week, very much looking forward to it.
I use this time of year to larp as someone who has a 4 day work week.
I’ve finally listened to myself and managed to set clear boundaries with my client. Today is my first real actual day off in months. Like wtf.
It feels totally off and it’s hard not to be vigilant, as if something could go wrong any moment and needs my immediate attention. When I wake up the first thought in my head is some math problem for my client.
However I’m real proud of the step I took and I know in the long run it’s going to be good for me :]
Well done for setting boundaries like that!
I keep reminding myself and my friends that, unless your work literally means life or death for your customer/client, our work isn’t so important that you need to work hours and hours of overtime to finish it instead of completing it the next day. And if the amount of work you receive each day is larger than the amount you can complete, it is a pretty safe sign that you need more personnel (provided your time management already is good).
One of my online friends passed away earlier this year, and I just found out about it. One of her friends telegram-ed me about the news. She was a Russian who’s outspoken about the war, and also seems to be struggling against depression. I have no idea how she passed, and I can’t bear to ask.
Apparently I’m one of the people who communicated with her in the last few months of her life. I’m bad at words, so I try to send funny animal videos, and occasional hug emoji to make people feel better. I hope whatever I did could alleviate some of her sorrows in her final moments.
Hi sub can I ask, did you play games together?
As someone who has struggled with depression I just want to tell you that if she genuinely wanted to end it there was nothing you could’ve done. In that state you just push everyone away.
And also that in such dark moments receiving a message from a friend and getting something like a kitten video does make a difference and can give a lot of relief even if only for a few moments.
we did not.
🫂 I hope you’re doing better
Be sure it did. The words don’t matter, feeling you’re not alone is everything.
How do I render screaming into a text format without using an obnoxious amount of capital letters?
Á̷͕ä̴͙ȃ̸̯a̶̜̕ả̷̩a̴͔͌a̵̘̔a̸͍͠ȧ̵̠a̴͇̍a̵̬͋ȁ̵͉ẖ̴̓h̷̞̓h̵͎̒h̶̭̆!̴͖͆!̸̬͌!̴͜͝!̶̠̃!̶̭͝!̵̹̊!̸̦̈!̵̤͋!̸̖̾
This sounds perfect. That is the sound life makes.
😫😫😫😫😵🤬😑
Perfect. That sums up my experience of life right now.
Starting to feel like I need to leave lemmy. Alt right types are in full swing on basically every instance and I can’t go a day without someone call me a “r——d.” Feels like the worst parts of Reddit some days because community mods are - just like on Reddit - too scared to ban people.
Do you still find that to be the case on BeeHaw? Admittedly I never browsed Reddit all too much before, and likewise only occasionally browse Lemmy, but really only this instance so I don’t really have that many data points.
No beehaw is noticeably better but I like to look at other instances occasionally + beehaw might be leaving the fediverse due to growth pains
community mods are - just like on Reddit - too scared to ban people
There’s those, and there’s also the opposite.
Some communities on larger instances have been infiltrated by mods who are happy to remove comments and ban users in direct contradiction of their own community rules, going as far as citing the rule a comment is explicitly following as the reason for removal or ban, just because it doesn’t match their personal ideology.
Other mods will engage obvious trolls, going as far as telling them which rules they’re breaking over and over, not putting an end to it even when the troll admits breaking the rules on purpose and starts insulting the mods directly… but the troll’s initial arguments had a clear ideological slant which seems to align with the mod’s, so no modding there.
Coincidentally, both of those seem to happen with “power mods”, who are “modding” dozens of communities.
I can’t go a day without someone call me a “r——d”
It may feel hard, but when you get insulted, you report it, and there is no modding in sight… I’d suggest leaving (blocking) that community.
There is a reason there are like 20+ “cats” communities on different instances, not everyone can get along even on a seemingly innocuous topic like that.
I think it’s important for me to mention that I have blocked several instances and dozens of users over the last two weeks. I am aware of these solutions, but eventually (in such a small world like the fediverse) all the removals start adding up and you start realizing there’s little left. 
I wouldn’t call the fediverse particularly “small”, there are over 1000 Lemmy instances, with the total fediverse clocking at over 3 million active users (around 12 million accounts), and while the interactions on the different projects are not all the same, I think there is a lot of options to choose from.
And technically… Lemmy doesn’t support much of it (yet), but all projects can interact with each other.
Some tools may be still missing, but I think it should be possible to find a comfy place for everyone.
I understand what you are saying, but there is no denying that most people on Lemmy are just kind of browsing across instances and not paying particular attention to where they are. The default setup is not your subscriptions or local instance, so it’s to be expected. As a result there is a bleeding effect, for lack of a better term, and a general culture that is emerging across most of the posts any one would see on a given day. And unfortunately, the tone of these conversations has become increasingly heated lately. Or at least it seems that way to me.
In the grand scheme of things, 3,000,000 active users is not that large. Only a fraction of them are posting and engaging in the comment sections. I regularly see the same people almost every day in comments. There are some instances where it’s literally the same 15 to 20 people basically carrying on all conversation while thousands look on. 
Things have been somewhat more stable. My anxiety and depression seem to be somewhat under control although there are still the really bad days here and there. I’m slowly getting over severing ties with my best friend of 18 years and am slowly coming to the realisation that maybe it was all for the best. Otherwise, all is the same, gym, work, therapy, some light gaming and reading. Things will be okay.
Things WILL be okay, just to add an extra voice. You got this.
Thank you! That really means a lot and I appreciate your encouragement!
chuck went in for knee surgery on thursday and came out a tripawd. his injury was much worse than originally thought. he also had diarrhea most of the weekend, but we’re finally out of that stage now. he is resting and seems to be adapting pretty well, all things considered.
last photo of him with four legs.
my other dog is in for a teeth cleaning today and getting at least one pulled today, which means 2/3 dogs here will be drugged up and in recovery of some sort. thankfully dental recovery is usually quite quick and easy.
Bad news: Anxiety’s been climbing for no real reason. Stomach knot continuously tightening, even noticing it while lying down, which is new. Tried a cannabis gummy to see if it’d at least unwind the knot. No tolerance to THC at all after about a decade of not using it, so the dose I thought was sensible - one gummy - turned out to be way too much. It was by no means the relaxing experience I was kind of desperate for, but I did devour an entire bag of baby carrots without noticing, so that happened.
Neutral news: Beyond that, pretty okay. Routine’s been mostly unchanged.
Good news: In January a massive tree fell during a blizzard and crashed through the roof in the room where I was sleeping, and while we managed to get the tree lifted off the house there’s been nothing but tarps covering what remains of the roof ever since then. Because there was so much damage to so many houses as a result of the storm - and the insurance only uses one construction company in the region - we’ve been on a waiting list to have the collapsed part of our house fixed for six months. They’ve said they ordered the trusses to fix it as of one week ago, and should be out to get started Oct 16. I am super hyped about this.
My grandma passed away Monday last week and we had the funeral service yesterday. It was a rough period of limbo but I feel better having gone through the service. Grief fucking sucks but crying is also very cathartic so I somehow feel not bad? Maybe it’s nature’s numbness.
Aside from that I’m alright and I’m looking forward to seeing some friends and doing fun things.
I’ll be ok
Peanut butter chocolate ice cream with extra peanut butter mixed in
I have some online friends who have really been irritating me lately because they message me all the time about stuff I don’t want to engage with and if I don’t respond they’ll find me thru other apps and message me there. I have uninstalled a couple apps and am ghosting them for a couple days until I can stop feeling so grouchy about it but unsure of my long term plan.
We had a windstorm midway through the week last week, with knocked about 75% of the apples off of my little apple tree, a few days before they would have been perfectly ripe. So we made apple crumble, and it was absolutely delicious. None of the apples were wormy this year even though we don’t spray the tree- just lucky I suppose.
I saw the CPAP specialist, who is apparently a respiratory guy, and he agreed to tighten up the settings on my CPAP so it stops giving me jumpscares in the middle of the night. I can go see him again in a month if that doesn’t help. So far it has not, but it’s only been four days. I also wrote to the nurse helpline to ask how I should dry my hose, and they not only offered to send me a spare hose for free, they are also sending a full face mask for when I inevitably get a cold. This is of course a completely new experience with ResMed, but they can keep it up!
school [._.]
