I absolutely do not mean to diminish your pain or discount your experience, but every medical procedure comes with risks. Skin closures (sutures or otherwise) can be done correctly in the first place, but it is possible for the suture knot to come untied or for the suture material to break, and infection is the main risk for any procedure that breaks the skin.

To others reading this: the vast majority of physicians are competent professionals that always do the best that they can, but things can go wrong even if they do everything right. If a physician has one complaint against them for a poor outcome, that’s pretty normal. If there are no complaints at all whatsoever, they probably haven’t been in practice long enough for the statistics to catch up to them. If there’s a pile of complaints (especially ones that cite carelessness or callousness) that would be one to be wary of.

Anterior Pituitary, Spinal Cord, Teeth, Thalamus, Limbs

But they get to choose whose medical bills get paid. They can make sure that only “good Christians deserving of Jesus’ mercy” are the ones getting assistance. Not some stranger in the urban ghettos with children born out of wedlock, etc.

These are the people that will make the distinction between “drug addict” and “person with substance use disorder” based on demographics like race, socioeconomic status, and religion.

Multiple people have already died in San Francisco due to these trash heaps. I can think of at least 2 confirmed incidents where the robo-taxis and their inability to deal with unusual situations has gotten people killed. One was very direct in which the car ran over a pedestrian, and another was somewhat indirect but still clearly responsible. San Francisco has notoriously narrow streets and 1 or 2 (I can’t remember specifically at the moment) robo-taxis blocked a roadway and prevented an ambulance from getting to a patient that died before they arrived because of the delay.

In both instances, they didn’t have passengers, so I think that made them a lower priority for the human interventions.

And California is still dragging its heels on cracking down on this bullshit. Someone rich will have to die first. Poor people don’t count.

There was an incident not too long ago where one of these robo-taxis ran a woman over to avoid another car doing something it didn’t expect and then it froze up and wouldn’t move at all with the woman trapped under the car. There wasn’t a driver to get out and help and it took a few minutes for bystanders to get involved to help her, and she ended up dying at the scene.

If we can’t get rid of these monstrosities, at least having a human monitoring them that can call 911 is important, but that still doesn’t solve the problem of there not being a human present to render aid if something goes wrong. (Not to imply that every human will be willing or able to render aid, but some chance of help is better than no chance of help.)

I used to work on a plastic surgery clinic and we did mastectomy/breast reduction (removal of all or some breast tissue) a decent amount for cis men, cis women, and trans men. I even did the insurance paperwork for all of the non-cosmetic procedures.

Different insurance companies have different criteria for breast reduction and/or mastectomy. You can call your insurance company and ask them to send you the “Medical Necessity Criteria” for mastectomy or breast reduction for an adult male. You can also schedule a consultation with a plastic surgeon and they can run it through your insurance after doing an exam and taking measurements and whatnot.

The procedure itself is pretty straightforward, it’s usually an outpatient surgery and you go home the same day. There will be a small, linear scar, usually along the underside of the breast, but they sew it under the skin, so the scar is very minimal when it heals. Depending on how much tissue they have to remove, you might have to have drains in there with tubes that come out through the skin for a couple of weeks to make sure you don’t end up with a fluid collection, and you’ll most likely need to wear a binder of some kind for 2-4 weeks to also help prevent fluid accumulation. Your individual situation might vary, so make sure to write down all of your questions to bring to your consultation appointment to go over with the surgeon.

Pro tip for in-demand medical specialties: the easiest time to schedule an appointment with them is usually January and February because everyone’s deductible reset on the new year and people don’t want to pay the out of pocket costs if they can avoid it.

They didn’t have the lifestyle problems he does though. His diet, lack of exercise, and possibility of long-term damage from COVID put him at a much higher risk of dying younger.

Normally, I don’t buy Israeli products wherever I can avoid it, but pelting these guys with the jumbo cans of Goya beans would be pretty funny.

“Concerns about financial corruption”?

Really? There’s no “concern” here for anyone with 2 brain cells to boop together. It’s a known, reliable fact, not a “concern”.

I said old or injured.

I love the absolute chaos you’re bringing to this comment section. You’re my kinda people.

As a healthcare worker who has had a patient try to strangle her before…I would like violence not to be an expected part of my job.

I’m not outright trying to be contrarian, but for some older people or people with things like arthritis, foot injuries, hip injuries, etc. walking or running on a treadmill is vastly less painful than walking or running on concrete.

There is absolutely a huge commercialization problem with fitness and health in the western world (and in America in particular), but if going to a climate-controlled gym and getting your steps in on a treadmill or elliptical is what it takes to get you to exercise, I’m all for it.

For the potato chips, that’s really sleazy of the gym, but I do want people to know that even if you don’t/can’t make a bunch of changes to your diet and you don’t lose weight, getting exercise of any kind as often as you are able is still a positive thing for your heart and metabolic health. Please don’t let being fat, or out of shape, or an inability to overhaul your diet prevent you from doing something positive for your health. Losing weight and keeping it off is really only possible through major lifestyle change, and, for a lot of people, the only sustainable way to make the necessary changes is one at a time.

Why not both?

These were planted alongside trails and on the medians of the road. This is just down the road from my house and the land these trees were on is not useful for literally anything besides trees.

I’ve spent enough time around religious wingnuts to know that some of them just do it out of hate and disgust. It’s not always self-disgust. Sometimes they just buy into the propaganda so deeply that any deviance is simply abhorrent and must be eradicated.

I have personally dragged a couple of people out of that mindset and they are very straight, so it was never a self-hatred thing, just a brainwashing thing.

The bit right after that talks about how that was his MO for assaulting gay men and he kept a “profanity-laced journal” about his actions.

In b4

You do not have a good understanding of menstruation and gynecology if you think that’s always the case. There are so many variations of irregular menstruation that trying to exclude data based on irregularities would be very difficult or get rid of a lot of legitimate irregular data.

Irregular menstrual cycles are very common and happen for a lot of different reasons. Also, there are different kinds of “regular” periods. Someone could be said to have regular periods even if they happen on shorter or longer cycles than the typical 28-30 days provided that it’s a consistent pattern without significant deviation for that person.