Life

[payitforward]

Been a rough go around here. My 16 year old son didn’t come out of the COVID era well. Already shy and socially awkward, he’s become reclusive, deeply depressed and this year suffered from school refusal. Stays in his room most of the time, often can’t get out of bed. Thankfully most of his suicidal ideation has passed with the help of anti depressants and anti anxiety medication.

My daughter went through something similar, depression from PTSD from something bad that happened to her in middle school and ADHD on top of it. Used to have a lot of trouble just getting out of bed in the morning. She flunked out of college her first year. Really smart kid but her ADHD just doesn't allow her to operate in the way you have to to be successful at college. She discovered she really liked crisis management because it relies on you making decisions in the moment rather than having to plan out what you're going to do for the next six months and that works for her. She did a lot of contract work helping FEMA respond to hurricanes and she just now got a full time job with the Ohio state government's disaster response office, she's got her own insurance and is in a union and everything now. I'm super proud of her particularly given where she was at just a few years ago.

Step one is to just survive being a teenager with depression. Being there and being supportive and loving is the number one thing you can do.

Thanks Zonk. It really helps to know we’re not going through it alone and helps to hear stories like your daughter’s. She seems like a cool young woman.

boulez -- I hope you will keep us in the loop about your son. Keep writing about him here. & feel free to tell him that an 80-year-old fool (me) who's experienced a whole hell of a lot in life has him on his mind. Because I do.

[montestewart]

Zonk come to DC I'll get you jacked as ****

Zonk, read the fine print re “jacked as ****”

[montestewart]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/06/ozempic-weight-loss-ruth-marcus/

I thought this was a really good read. Title was

I lost 40 pounds on Ozempic. But I’m left with even more questions.

It's kinda long.

You didn’t look that big the last time I saw you. Did you gain and lose during Covid?

[gambitx777]

My buddy is a personal trainer in the Baltimore area and he's one of the best I would gladly try to hook anyone up with him he's brilliant. He got me on some good routines and I started gaining muscle pretty fast and I dropped pretty quick too.

Sent from my SM-G991U1 using RealGM mobile app

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

My daughter went through something similar, depression from PTSD from something bad that happened to her in middle school and ADHD on top of it. Used to have a lot of trouble just getting out of bed in the morning. She flunked out of college her first year. Really smart kid but her ADHD just doesn't allow her to operate in the way you have to to be successful at college. She discovered she really liked crisis management because it relies on you making decisions in the moment rather than having to plan out what you're going to do for the next six months and that works for her. She did a lot of contract work helping FEMA respond to hurricanes and she just now got a full time job with the Ohio state government's disaster response office, she's got her own insurance and is in a union and everything now. I'm super proud of her particularly given where she was at just a few years ago.

Step one is to just survive being a teenager with depression. Being there and being supportive and loving is the number one thing you can do.

Thanks Zonk. It really helps to know we’re not going through it alone and helps to hear stories like your daughter’s. She seems like a cool young woman.

boulez -- I hope you will keep us in the loop about your son. Keep writing about him here. & feel free to tell him that an 80-year-old fool (me) who's experienced a whole hell of a lot in life has him on his mind. Because I do.

Thanks PIF. I really appreciate it. I think he’d be pretty mortified if I told him I’d been posting about him… he’s pretty attention shy. Nonetheless, having you all express your support has really lifted my spirits.

And he’s showing some positive signs: coming out of his room to join us for dinner, just started a summer course at the community college. Made plans and went out with friends. Little things, but a really welcome sight for us.

I did remind him, as you reminded me to do, that things won’t always feel like this. That he will find joy and have better days. This is NOT all there is.

And thanks for sharing your family story. But for the grace of God. My great grandfather got out of a little village outside of Mariopol just before the pogroms. Found tough sledding here - actually in Cincinnati where he ended up after following the canal west from Baltimore where he landed. Lots of anti Jew, anti German and anti Russian sentiment in those days.

But, his plight was so much better obviously than if he had stayed. I’m guessing that most of his neighbors and relatives that the Czar didn’t get were finished off by the Nazis or died in one of the wars. Most if not all of that family history in the old world has been erased. It’s pretty amazing the terrible things we are capable of when blinded by ideology.

I’m really lucky. I got something my son didn’t or hasn’t yet… a deep inside eternal optimism, even when evidence lines up against it. He’s so damn smart… but too smart by half. Unlike me, he’s incapable of, year after year, believing, say, that the Wiz or any of the gawd awful teams from DC that I follow and cannot quit will turn it around.

Blessings and curses, I suppose.

[Zonkerbl]

My ancestors on my mom's side came over from Ukraine in 1905 after the pogroms there, apparently the village they came from no longer exists. So thanks to earlier antisemitism they all managed to escape the holocaust.

[dobrojim]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/06/ozempic-weight-loss-ruth-marcus/

I thought this was a really good read. Title was

I lost 40 pounds on Ozempic. But I’m left with even more questions.

It's kinda long.

You didn’t look that big the last time I saw you. Did you gain and lose during Covid?

I suspect my weight went up during covid but probably not by more than 5-8 pounds.

I tend to hide my weight well. I'll complain about not being the weight I wish. Friends
will say you don't look that heavy and then when I challenge them to guess my weight,
they typically guess 20 pounds less than it actually is.

[dobrojim]

Thanks Zonk. It really helps to know we’re not going through it alone and helps to hear stories like your daughter’s. She seems like a cool young woman.

boulez -- I hope you will keep us in the loop about your son. Keep writing about him here. & feel free to tell him that an 80-year-old fool (me) who's experienced a whole hell of a lot in life has him on his mind. Because I do.

Thanks PIF. I really appreciate it. I think he’d be pretty mortified if I told him I’d been posting about him… he’s pretty attention shy. Nonetheless, having you all express your support has really lifted my spirits.

And he’s showing some positive signs: coming out of his room to join us for dinner, just started a summer course at the community college. Made plans and went out with friends. Little things, but a really welcome sight for us.

I did remind him, as you reminded me to do, that things won’t always feel like this. That he will find joy and have better days. This is NOT all there is.

And thanks for sharing your family story. But for the grace of God. My great grandfather got out of a little village outside of Mariopol just before the pogroms. Found tough sledding here - actually in Cincinnati where he ended up after following the canal west from Baltimore where he landed. Lots of anti Jew, anti German and anti Russian sentiment in those days.

But, his plight was so much better obviously than if he had stayed. I’m guessing that most of his neighbors and relatives that the Czar didn’t get were finished off by the Nazis or died in one of the wars. Most if not all of that family history in the old world has been erased. It’s pretty amazing the terrible things we are capable of when blinded by ideology.

I’m really lucky. I got something my son didn’t or hasn’t yet… a deep inside eternal optimism, even when evidence lines up against it. He’s so damn smart… but too smart by half. Unlike me, he’s incapable of, year after year, believing, say, that the Wiz or any of the gawd awful teams from DC that I follow and cannot quit will turn it around.

Blessings and curses, I suppose.

I learned a few things that really surprised me recently. Some of this is described in a book
called my Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Manakem

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=my+grandmothers+hands%27&hvadid=598659528919&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9007595&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=11940223421122074073&hvtargid=kwd-1291147419724&hydadcr=22562_13531169&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_21xo0ftoto_e

and also from a NOVA program on the brain. It has to do with the lasting impacts of trauma.
The NOVA program described research that showed the effects of trauma can be inherited
by our children which went against much of what I believed I understood about genetics.
The history of humanity is filled with brutality and trauma which remains with us to this day.

[bsilver]

This March I got a call from my dermatologist, and from the tone of her voice could tell it wasn't good news. She had previously diagnosed my symptoms as "jock itch", but turned out it was a rare skin cancer called extra mammary Paget's disease (EMPD). I was referred to a specialist at Yale here in New Haven, but had to wait 2 weeks for an appointment.

Googling was scary. There was about a 25% chance my time was limited. Finally had the appointment and found out the biopsies showed I had a non-invasive form of the disease, and should recover.

Had surgery to remove a fairly large cancerous area, and my groin area looks quite Frankensteinish. One positive of the experience is an appreciation of the care I've received at the Yale Smilow Cancer hospital. I've had to go many times and have been impressed by the dedication and expertise of the staff. Never expected to be on a first name basis with my nurse and nurse practitioner.

Hopefully I've learned to make good use of my remaining healthy years. I'm 74, and in pretty good shape so that could be quite a while.

[payitforward]

@ bsilver -- yikes! Take care of yourself young fella!

[pancakes3]

i love this thread.

[bsilver]

My ancestors on my mom's side came over from Ukraine in 1905 after the pogroms there, apparently the village they came from no longer exists. So thanks to earlier antisemitism they all managed to escape the holocaust.

My background is similar. It’s very unfortunate that anti-semitism and other factors led to the Immigration Act of 1924 which pretty much ended immigration of Jews, Italians, and other undesirables. Millions of lives could have been saved.

[doclinkin]

This March I got a call from my dermatologist, and from the tone of her voice could tell it wasn't good news. She had previously diagnosed my symptoms as "jock itch", but turned out it was a rare skin cancer called extra mammary Paget's disease (EMPD). I was referred to a specialist at Yale here in New Haven, but had to wait 2 weeks for an appointment.

Googling was scary. There was about a 25% chance my time was limited. Finally had the appointment and found out the biopsies showed I had a non-invasive form of the disease, and should recover.

Had surgery to remove a fairly large cancerous area, and my groin area looks quite Frankensteinish. One positive of the experience is an appreciation of the care I've received at the Yale Smilow Cancer hospital. I've had to go many times and have been impressed by the dedication and expertise of the staff. Never expected to be on a first name basis with my nurse and nurse practitioner.

Hopefully I've learned to make good use of my remaining healthy years. I'm 74, and in pretty good shape so that could be quite a while.

All of the hospitals in the Yale system are cutting edge. So to speak. I never got anything but notably stellar care whenever I had to use them. Like a world reknowned cancer expert patched up a puncture wound for me because other docs were in the ER and he had the time.

[dobrojim]

can't help but notice the juxtaposition of having surgeons (or hospitals) described as being on the cutting edge.

Of course one amazing advance among many in the medical field is how little surgeons now
have to cut in order to get inside you. That along with how incredible the diagnostic tools
to visualize and/or find things are. My own life has been improved tremendously by modern
medical technology. yeah it can be expensive but it clearly provides for seriously meaningful
improvement in the quality of life.

[montestewart]

My ancestors on my mom's side came over from Ukraine in 1905 after the pogroms there, apparently the village they came from no longer exists. So thanks to earlier antisemitism they all managed to escape the holocaust.

Likewise, on my father’s side.

[dobrojim]

bump

I had an interesting week last week.

Having deferred an entry to the VT100 Endurance run since 2020, I had gone ahead
and entered the 100 km which had been scheduled to take place on Sat July 15.
I made plans to drive to VT on Wednesday last week with a quick overnight stop
in Philly on Tuesday night. When I got to Philly I had an email that the race was
cancelled and decided to go up anyway since I was staying with friends who
welcome guests. I had already signed up to volunteer with the race on THU/FRI.
The race sent out an email on ways to help the residents who's homes were
damaged or destroyed. I ended up working with race volunteers on THU helping
them organize 'stuff' of which they have a lot. On Friday and Saturday I joined
a group of other folks affiliated with the race and we drove about 45 minutes
to a little town called Cavendish (VT) and worked basically doing demolition
on the destroyed parts of their houses and cleaning up junk from their yards
and loading it into trucks or trailers to be hauled away. The power of the flood
was exemplified in the case of a house that was right next to an old RR line
(don't know if it was still active). There was the house, the RR line and the river
next to that. The flood actually undercut the RR bed and moved all the rocks
and gravel forming the bed into someone's backyard. It was stunning to see
what had happened. In any case, trying to remember my philosophy of
gratitude, I was actually grateful to be able to give a little of myself
helping these folks out. I worry that they will continue to be at risk living
where they do. This was the second time in a relatively short period of
time that this area had flooded. Since selling their property would now
be virtually impossible, I don't know what can be done. During my time
working or driving over to the area to work one of the conversations I
had included the observation of how different their socio-economic status
was from another more wealthy town and in that richer town, the folks
there would start writing checks to recover. The people in Cavendish,
while not impoverished, don't have those kinds of resources. I think
many of the residents had varying degrees of PTSD. Not a word of
politics could be heard from anyone during the time I was in or around
houses that were flood damaged/destroyed. They had more important
things to deal with. That said, it's becoming increasingly more difficult
to argue climate change/global warming isn't a real thing.

[barelyawake]

Life… it’s bigger.

[dobrojim]

A small minority of runners bitched to the race director about the decision to cancel. The organizers really had no choice. There were parts of the course that were inaccessible if a runner had been in an emergency situation. And the 30% of the course on trails is mostly privately held land that the owners wouldn’t have liked seeing get totally trashed.

Life is bigger.

[dobrojim]

So I had a rather shocking evening last night.

While I was upstairs participating in a virtual (zoom) open mic, the county police knocked on
my door. They were looking for my brother's next of kin. I was informed he had been discovered
deceased in his condo, dead for an undetermined amount of time. He just had a birthday 8/1
and I had texted him but without reply which wasn't completely unusual for him but I had gotten
him a shirt which I just got sent off in the mail yesterday. I'm in shock but not terribly surprised because
he was not in good health. Of course the news of this arrived suddenly and strongly.
I now have a lot of things to deal with and at somewhat long distance as he lived in
Longmont CO (I-25 corridor N of Denver). The longer you live, the more you have to
deal with as a result of your contemporaries dying ahead of you.

[pancakes3]

sorry to hear dobro. sending virtual hugs your way.