Posts by briskdrifter2

Does anyone else feel like following high school sports recruiting is a full-time job lately? I remember back in the day, you just watched the games, saw who played well, and that was that. Now, it feels like every single kid is being tracked by scouts from the moment they pick up a ball, and the whole process is just this endless cycle of "final lists" and "top prospects."

It’s honestly exhausting to keep up with. You get so invested in a kid's journey, following them through every single decision and ranking, only for the whole thing to flip on its head in a second. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve thought a certain player was a lock for a specific program, only to see them pivot at the last minute. It makes the whole "hype train" feel a bit fragile.

Am I just getting old, or has the intensity of these recruitment battles always been this much of a rollercoaster?

topic for me 😍

So 😬
I’m looking for some new friends. I feel like I’ve lost almost everyone I used to know since becoming a mom seven months ago.
I’d prefer something virtual at first, mostly because my schedule is pretty much dictated by the baby right now. As long as we can chat via phone, I'm game.
That said, I wouldn't rule out meeting up for coffee somewhere in NYC or within reach of the subway lines—I can't exactly navigate those old stairs with a stroller🙂... and, obviously, if you don't mind a tiny, clingy human tagging along.
The baby comes with a certificate stating they are wonderful, peaceful, and won't be a total nuisance during our coffee dates.😁

Diagnosis: general loneliness, boredom, and probably postpartum depression.

Age: I'm 38, but I'm not being picky, so give or take ten years.😁

🤣
That’s exactly why I started saving up for my own place.
I mean, my roommates haven't been terrible so far. We were mostly civil—we just stayed out of each other's way... except for the occasional snoring incident 👏. A couple of them were absolute lunatics, though. That was enough motivation for me to make sure I wasn't stuck dealing with their chaos on top of my own hormones.

Protocols! It’s the protocols that caught me completely off guard.

It took me a minute to wrap my head around it, and honestly, it didn't even cross my mind before... but once you're inside the US healthcare system, you basically become part of a protocol.
Run this test during week X, or if Y happens, move to protocol Z and schedule blood work monthly...
If you show up at the hospital at 37 weeks pregnant and you're dilated just a finger's width without active labor, the protocol says send you home and have you back for a checkup in a week...
Everything is dictated by a protocol. And being my curious self, I’d love to actually see them. 🙂
I don't think protocols are inherently bad; they definitely help minimize mistakes or prevent someone from forgetting a step.
It’s just... it’s almost comical when a doctor tells you, "Look, according to protocol, I have to write down that you need a follow-up in a week, but if you feel fine, ten days is also okay—you don't have to be exact."
But that actually explains why veteran doctors are so much better. They’ve internalized every single protocol, and they’ve had enough experience with edge cases to know how to navigate those gray areas...
And why junior doctors or residents struggle—they probably haven't memorized all the nuances yet, especially those tricky outlier scenarios.
Still... at the end of the day, we're just a number assigned to Protocol 44. That’s where that feeling comes from—like you're just a cog on an assembly line...

I really wonder if there's some kind of handbook you get handed when you start working at a hospital, complete with a full list of these protocols. And how on earth does one get access to that magic book? 🤔 :klap:

And then there's the weight gain....
That’s the question I got most often, whether it was from friends or doctors. I can almost forgive the doctors, though even they tend to exaggerate things.
The peak experience for me was falling straight into hyperstimulation. By my fifth month, I had packed on about 10 or 12 pounds—mostly just water bloating in a stomach that looked five months along already. People kept trying to comfort me, saying everything was fine and that I'd lose it all later, telling me not to worry... Meanwhile, I'm sitting there wondering if they realize I'm dealing with an actual medical issue, not just ten pounds of extra fat. I wasn't sure who was supposed to be "worrying" here. Honestly, the only thing that actually stressed me out was having to rush out and buy maternity clothes overnight because nothing else fit anymore. But those are just details 😉

Or like when a friend who hadn't seen me in about ten weeks decided to comment that I definitely had a belly now, but I still looked good.
I have no idea what he expected me to look like by the end of the pregnancy.

It’s not that I was irritated—I don't take those kinds of comments seriously—it's just that there were way more of them than I anticipated. It felt like everyone with a pulse had an opinion.

I think my mother was most frustrated by the fact that "what people might think" didn't affect me at all. She couldn't wrap her head around why I viewed this whole thing as my greatest evolutionary achievement. 🙂 Still, it’s a liberating state of mind and body...🙂

Samuel Cook96 said:I honestly don't get those intense, militant moms who feel the need to go on the attack and throw subtle insults at anyone with a different perspective—even if they're just saying they find life with babies easy.

Like, seriously, what's the point?

To prove their worth as women, mothers, queens?
Who knows. I never feel the urge to lecture someone on their life unless they explicitly ask for my take.
A friend of mine has a truly exhausting little girl (by my standards). I actually dread the idea of grabbing coffee at her place when the kid is home because the experience is just draining. But hey... maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just not built for a hyperactive four-year-old. Maybe all kids that age are like that... what do I know. Either way, I'm fairly certain every child is unique.
But I have a feeling I'd be one of those "other" types of moms. I'd probably have a few choice words ready if my friend was making mistakes or didn't fit my specific mold of how a four-year-old should behave.

I don't have kids yet, so I’ll just be philosophizing into the void for a moment.
One friend of mine takes her baby everywhere. If it drizzles? No big deal. If she needs to hit Target and the stroller is too much? She just uses the baby carrier and they go...
On the flip side, another friend won't step foot outside unless the weather, psychological state, and physical conditions are absolutely perfect by her specific standards. For the first three months, she barely left the house because she figured babies don't really "do" anything outside until they get a bit stronger. Then, it couldn't be too cold, too hot, too windy, too early, or too late. And for the first several times, she wouldn't even dare venture out without her husband... though I have no idea why...
It’s not like I got the impression her child is somehow more demanding than her first one, or that the main reason for these restrictions is the baby crying or anything like that.

I'm seeing two extremes in my circle here.
So, while it's true that babies vary in how demanding they are, mothers vary just as much in their attitudes, expectations, and levels of intensity.
One person can't handle laundry sitting there until there's enough for a full load—whatever their specific trigger is—while another will nag her husband to get home immediately...
Some dads would rather watch the kid so Mom can tidy up the house, while other dads would rather do the tidying themselves.

And through this whole ordeal, I have no clue who actually qualifies as a "mother." In fact, I suspect women just convince themselves they aren't good enough at it... Just like they feel they aren't thin enough, successful enough, or don't have the right hair, nose shape, or whatever else society demands of women.

Personally, I know I'm going to screw something up with my child. It's my first, I didn't grow up with a younger sister or any kids around to pick up the basics from, and realistically, I am not perfect and don't know every single detail of child-rearing.
Once you accept that and stop chasing some impossible standard of perfection—and stop caring what people think or say—everything becomes much easier.
At least for me...😁

The "complications" were honestly what got under my skin the most.
I mean, the actual ones, or those "what if" scenarios people love to blow out of proportion.
I’ve always viewed pregnancy as a natural process.
Sure, your body changes, your hormones go haywire, and walking becomes a chore by the end... but that’s just part of prepping your body for birth and nursing a newborn later on.
I never complained about heartburn. It’s normal to have heartburn when everything is compressed; I’d be surprised if I didn't.
But what really irritates me is all the preemptive over-caution.
Running the same tests three, four, five times—or even every single month—just because a glucose reading might nudge from 12.1 to 12.5.
Getting blood drawn practically every week just to "monitor" things and make sure nothing goes wrong.
Look, maybe I was lucky that all my results came back perfectly fine, so now I can sit here and wonder if they were even necessary to that extent.
Still, I can't shake the feeling that it's all a bit excessive.
Anyway, I’m almost through it, and then I can't wait to stop being on a first-name basis with my doctors for at least a year. Just being able to show up for an annual checkup once a year without all the drama... that’s the dream. 🙂

So, my theory is she knew something was going on with her breast much longer than she let on.
For starters, during those last two years, she refused to go anywhere near the beach, even though she used to spend at least a month there every single year.

Beyond that, I remember her mentioning pain in her right arm well before any swelling or visible changes appeared... but of course, she just brushed it off as work stress or exhaustion.

Basically, my take is that she’s been aware of *some* kind of issue for a long time—maybe four or five years, maybe even more.
But hey, she chose to do absolutely nothing about it.

I think that’s actually the worst part of this whole mess. She demands 110% care and attention that only I can provide, yet on the flip side, she’s fully aware of the situation. She's cognitively sharp enough regarding herself and everyone else that you can't honestly claim she didn't know what she was doing.
As far as I'm concerned, it's passive suicide.
Some people jump in front of a train, some leap from bridges, some overdose, or pull a trigger.
My mother decided to commit suicide via breast cancer.
How much do you have to hate yourself—and everyone else—to do this to yourself (and to me and Dad, since we're both suffering through this nightmare right now)? It's unbelievable.
I always knew my parents were a bit crazy, but this level... wow...

Lymphatic drainage isn't even an option because the tumor is too large; there's simply no lymph flow left to drain.
And they can't even perform surgery because the mass is too big and her body is in too poor of a state to handle it. Plus, since so much has broken through the surface, there isn't even enough healthy skin left to close the wound if they were to cut anything out.

Hi everyone..
I’ve been debating whether I should even bother posting here. Usually, when depression hits me IRL, I end up lurking on this forum... 🙂
So, I’m new to this thread.
To make a long story short—my mom has had breast cancer for years now.
What makes this whole situation surreal, shocking, or just plain WTF... is that my mother never actually sought treatment for it.
This past spring, I started noticing some swelling in her right arm.
Since we don't live in the same city, I’d only see her on weekends, and I noticed her arm looked wrong—just constantly swollen.
She kept making excuses, saying it was just from working too hard or digging around in the garden, and that it would settle down if she rested.
After her arm stayed swollen every single time I visited over several months, I started getting worried.
Then, this summer, she picked up salmonella from some food she had outside, and she was absolutely wiped out after a week of vomiting and diarrhea...
Except, after lying in bed for two days, she couldn't even get back up.
Bit by bit, after endless arguments—you telling her to go to the doctor, her refusing, the "what's wrong with you?" routine—it turns out you can't have an arm that swollen just from food poisoning... It turns out my mother is in the late stages of breast cancer with metastases everywhere, mostly in the lymph nodes, obviously.
So, in one month, I went from having a mostly healthy mom with minor old-age issues like high blood pressure or a sore back from gardening, to having a terminally ill mother with breast cancer and not a single scrap of medical paperwork to show for it.
Four months have passed since then. Since the cancer wasn't officially diagnosed until recently, I won't even say she hasn't received therapy; the disease progressed terrifyingly fast. It’s the kind of thing where one week she can walk fine, the next she needs a cane, and the next she can't even move with the cane...

After the initial shock and disbelief, I’ve somewhat adjusted to the idea that Mom is going to die.
But... honestly, people, our doctors...
To start with, they act like grumpy teenagers because—get this—she refused treatment until now. How does someone even dare refuse treatment in the first place?!
Then comes the standard lecture: basically implying it's all her own fault. Like, what are they even going to tell her now?
And to top it all off, they have this attitude that there's no point in doing anything or helping a family with such a severe patient because they can't cure her, so why bother.
For example: the tumor is blocking circulation in and out of her arm, so lymph fluid is just building up. Since it just keeps accumulating and can't drain, the arm just keeps growing. Because the tumor is inoperable, they claim nothing can be done about it.
And now, based on what I’ve gathered from reading online—not from the doctors—the progression means the swelling will continue until wounds open up, eventually leading to gangrene or sepsis.
So I ask the doctors: when will I know if I need to take action against the arm? Like, when is it time to step in because gangrene or whatever has set in? They just look at me blankly and say there's nothing they can do. Okay, so what am I supposed to do? Just watch her arm slowly turn black and rot away? Should I bandage it? Does it need to be cut? Will that kill her? Something, anything...
But mostly, it's just "there's no help." Whatever that's supposed to mean to me.
And so...
Maybe my situation belongs in a hospice discussion thread, if one even exists... 🤷