Bad news: my friend's dog that had been staying over at my place just tested positive for a highly contagious very deadly disease so I'm taking my puppy to the vet tomorrow to see if she's got it.

Good luck to your dad. Good to hear he is getting first class care.

Mine had surgery to remove thyroid cancer a month and a half ago, it's pretty brutal on the patient and family how indefinite treatment for cancer is.

Ikes, I'm really sorry to hear this. My heart goes out to you. I wish your father the best of luck. There is a silver lining in that it appears he can fight it with the hope of surviving. I think you are doing the right thing in spending time with him, btw.

Coincidentally, unfortunately, I'm in a similar position right now because my dad is in the late stages of a "battle" with ALS. I'm behind in all my classes, and should be studying, but I think the better course has been to head home and spend time with him while he can still talk. The professors I have talked to about it have been very understanding.

On a positive note, my dad's diagnosis had a rather dramatic positive effect on my life. It forced me to grow up and look at life from a perspective that I hadn't considered at that point. The result has, so far, been pretty good. I completely changed the trajectory of my life, I'm doing reasonably well in school studying things that are interesting and satisfying to me and my life appears to be heading in a direction that is going to provide me with much greater personal satisfaction than before. So, I hope, regardless of how things turn out with your dad, that you will be able to learn and gain perspective from this and grow as a person.

Sorry to hear about this Ikes. My mother died of cancer a few years back and it was pretty difficult. She had lung cancer and it wasn't diagnosed until she was very sick, it had metastasized to the bones when she was diagnosed. So there was essentially no chance for recovery.

She died about 8 months after she was diagnosed and I don't think she knew she was dying until the last few days. She didn't want to know her prognosis and the doctors didn't tell her. I lived a few hours away from my parents, my siblings all lived much farther away, so I took sort of a role that your'e describing for yourself. I went there every other weekend or so, or when she got chemo, I went to the doctor with her. It was pretty exhausting. More so because I knew what her prognosis was and she didn't.

Anyway, sounds like your Dad's case hopefully isn't quite as bad as that. Best of luck. I don't have any advice but I know what you're going through.

Sorry to hear about the diagnosis, ikes. I don't really have any advice to give you as this hasn't been a personal experience of mine, but it sounds like going home was both the right thing for yourself and your family. Hope to hear positive news on this front in the future.

Anyways, I'm looking for some practical advice in a weird situation that's completely new to me, and figured there might be some people here who could help. There's some weird **** going on with one of my best friends from school. We're in our last semester, and this entire year he's made a notable personality change, and not in a good way.

He was never a good student, and he always annoyed people from time to time, but he's been especially withdrawn this year, and it seems like the only thing he ever wants to do is crash undergrad parties (he's 25 right now) and scum around with drunk 18 yr.-old girls. On top of that, he's slowly been ostracizing himself from the rest of our friends since the beginning of the winter. He broke up with his girlfriend, and then one-by-one started being a massive dick to people for no reason (making fun of a disabled classmate, throwing racist slurs at a minority classmate and acting like it's all in good fun) and slowly losing all of his friends. I'm pretty patient with people, so I figured he was just going through a rough patch and kept talking to him.

**** got weird when we got back from spring break. The first time I saw him he approached me in the library, and I could tell right away that something looked ****ed up about him. Realized shortly after that he didn't have any eyebrows. (for those who watched the Sopranos, I was basically Tony when he realized that AJ had no eyebrows). He took his hat off, revealing that he had shaved his entire head minus three random patches of hair on the back. Looked like ****ing hell. I asked him what the hell was up, and he started talking about how he could never go back to his apartment again. I asked him why, and he said his roommate called the police on him. I asked him why again, and he responded with some long, weird, abstract answer that didn't really make any sense. At this point, I could tell something major was going on. I suggested that we go across the street and get a beer and talk about it privately.

We went into the bar, but he said he threw his wallet (and ID) in a trash can along with his cell-phone, so we got turned down at the door. I bought him a slice of pizza instead. We had a 15 minute conversation, and the cliffs were basically that a bunch of people were after him, but he didn't know exactly who, when, why, etc. He wouldn't/couldn't get into specifics, but sounded absolutely panicked and paranoid. I know next to nothing about mental health issues, but it started to looks like a schizophrenic episode to me, or some other disorder with similar symptoms. After we finished the pizza, he said he had to go and ran away. I told some friends to watch out for him over the weekend, because I was going away. Found out later that they had him involuntarily committed to a mental hospital for a couple days. His parents checked him out, and none of us are sure exactly what came from it. In the meantime, I learned from his roommate that he was drunk, high, speaking nonsense, and throwing his furniture out the window, and that this prompted the call to the police.

He got back in touch with me a few days after he got out, and sounded mildly improved. He was able to admit that he was involuntarily committed, and that it had happened to him once more in high school too. He is still under the impression that he was wronged by the two kids who had him involuntarily committed, and intends never to speak to them again. He asked me whose team I was on, which still sounded a bit weird/paranoid to me. He did not tell me whether he was on any new medication, or had received a diagnosis, or anything like that, and I didn't want to push. I was a bit relieved to hear him sounding better, but not quite convinced that everything was being treated properly.

Anyways, that takes us to the present day. I'm not sure how involved his parents are in helping him, I'm not sure what his diagnosis is, and I'm not sure how he's currently being treated. But the last couple of weeks, he's been a dickhead of epic proportions. He suggested an impromptu weekend trip across the country to Vegas, and became absolutely livid when I told him no. He wants to hang out from time to time, but blows up at the suggestion of (1) other friends coming along, and (2) doing something under than trying to sleep with inebriated undergrad freshman. If a friend in a normal situation started acting like this, I'd tell him to **** off and be on my way without a second guess. But I'm not sure that whatever psychosis he's dealing with can really be separated from his day-to-day attitude. Thus, I don't really know how to react to my friend's evolution into an incessant douchebag. Anyone input from people with knowledge or experience dealing with mentally ill friends or family would be great.

TLDR Cliffs: good friend had some sort of paranoid delusional episode, sort of came out of it, something is still a little off. How much can I blame him for acting like a dickhead?

Thanks for the post ikes. You can make it.

NFI on the paranoid guy.

Have a bipolar friend and that sounds like a manic episode to me.

Wishing the best to ikes.

Drugsarebad, it sounds like a tough one. Keeping your cool and your compassion is best for your friend and maybe challenging in that spot. If you are friends with his family and can ask how to help without triggering paranoia, maybe worthwhile. It's an ongoing process of accepting mental illness and that goes for not only the sufferer, but their friends and family as well.

I've had experience in my family with PTSD anti-social behavior, it is quite a challenge at times.

Ikes, sometimes the toughest thing is admitting you don't have enough strength or power to do everything yourself.

The fact that your father is otherwise supremely healthy is a good thing. He's probably in a good state of mind to handle this. Michigan has a great skin cancer program and you're gonna be that rational, stoic voice in your family to help get them through the marathon.

Telling people was hard for me too. It's one of those things where it hits your bulletproof exterior. Ultimately, a ton of emotion comes rolling out once you realize that your family isn't invincible. But you have to realize they're gonna provide their best support for you and that with each succeeding person, you'll feel a little better about well you're leading your family to your dad's good health. But it's also one of those things to where if you put it off, reaching out to others becomes harder. Go write an email to the people at your school and don't hold back on your inner feelings.

ugh ikes, man that ****ing sucks

wishing you the best

gl ikesdad

While people are throwing around depressing dad health stories, this weekend my siblings and I staged an intervention for my dad about his drinking & pills. Offered up a couple months in a treatment center to get straightened out - then tried to convince him to move halfway across the country afterwards to be closer to people who will support his recovery and away from the toxic situation he's been living in.

So far he's been pretty receptive to it all, which gives us some hope, but he's not in rehab yet so I'm still cautious. Hopefully they find a bed for him this week. Not exactly a pleasant thing for any of us to have to confront, but it was time.

Hey Ikes,

You should check out The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and get in touch with your local chapter. They support patients with blood cancers, lymph node cancers, and certain melanoma cases. Their services may apply to your dad's situation, or they may not, but it's worth checking out.

http://www.lls.org

They provide all kinds of support to cancer patients and their families, spanning everything from mentorship and support groups to financial assistance in some cases.

I do a lot of volunteer work with these guys, and they are a really good group.

Ikes really sorry to hear about your dad. If your the type who does better mentally if your doing more research (I know I am) you may want to read about PV-10, I know very little (nothing) about it, but some random PhD researcher I talked to was pretty excited about it in the context of trying to tell me the company developing it was the penny stock to buy. Who knows, but they have a compassionate use program going so may be worth atleast reading about.

http://www.pvct.com/compassionateuse.html

GLGL ikes and ikesdad

gl ikesdad, sorry you're dealing with that, man

i moved into a new apartment and my roommates are 46 and 42. 46 year old is confirmed crazy unemployed alcoholic sleeping on the couch in the living room and blasting music all night. also throws out the occasional book of revelations/angels talk and is highly prone to random bouts of extreme anger. also casually mentioned that he owed the gas company $800 and may need a $300 loan from me... i didn't sign anything but even just shipping first and last was a grave and egregious error.

GL ikes

I've also recently been diagnosed with cancer. It is a pretty "good" cancer in the sense that it is a somewhat aggressive thyroid cancer but thyroid cancers, even aggressive ones, are very high life expectancy in people who are 28 so a very different ballgame than your dad. But even given those qualifiers, def agree worst part is telling people. Had one surgery, going to have another and radioiodine, but I basically don't want to talk to anyone in my family outside my bro cause they just wnat to sit there and worry and I am the one comforting them being like "99% survival! 99% survival! stop ****ing worrying!"

so my boss has a policy that we are not allowed to go to HR for anything, but must go to her (division manager) instead. i'm curious where this falls on the illegal scale? I work in MA, fwiw:

1) blatantly, laughably illegal
2) probably illegal
3) questionably illegal
4) legal

Don't think the law comes in to play here as much as company policy

Anything? Like if you wanted to fill out a new W-4? I suspect it is don't complain to HR without seeing your manager first. I actually don't think that would be too bad if so. HR is not your ally in reality.

Wowser Ikes. Sorry to read about your Dad. Hang in there.

Heading back to New Orleans tomorrow. Don't especially want to, but time waits for no one and I got to get back to school.

I hope your dad makes a full recovery Ike's I just went trough hell with my mom. She was in a bad car accident a week and a half ago. She was in the ICU for 5 days with a fractured C1, 5 broken ribs and a bruised spleen. She is now in rehab and is going to make a full recovery (fingers crossed). Here are some pictures of her car.
20140407_162425 by Jalawu, on Flickr
20140407_162849_22 by Jalawu, on Flickr
20140407_162856_1 by Jalawu, on Flickr

She went off the road hit a guard rail head on and flipped 3.5 times end over end and landed on the roof. The door was that way when the EMS guys showed up. She is very very lucky to be alive.

jesus

Oh hai life thread, I forgot all about you.

dude, wtf, super cereal depressing thread this month, GL ikes and vodka (whoever you are)

in less depressing (but still depressing) news:

I made bacon pancakes this weekend.

for those who don't know what that is



cliffnotes: my kids were like OMG OMG OMG BACON PANCAKES LETS DO THIS BITCH then they got them and were like "meh". They both disassembled their bacon pancakes, one of them ate the bacon and left the pancake debris, the other ate the pancake and left a crumby piece of bacon.